Southern Africa: Eight Years Later

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time that this phrase was self-evidently consistent with main stream U.S. internationalism and essential to the very meaning of activist diplomacy. I recognized that there was a major risk in suggesting that the United States was prepared to deal seriously and substan tively with a distant foreign policy minefield with which Amer icans were overwhelmingly unfamiliar. The risk, in other words, seemed to lie in its very ambition, its commitment to a realistic and sustained pursuit of U.S. goals in the region as a whole (the concept was not proposed as the basis of policy toward South Africa alone). If we were to undertake such a commitment, I argued, we would need to base our actions on a solid grasp of the region's dynamics and to have the ability to interpret its actors and their motives. We would require an adequate internal consensus to prevent Americans and South Africans from exploiting each other's internal debates and conflicts. Finally, we would need to recognize the sharp limits on U.S. influence and to focus carefully on the likely consequences of possible U.S. actions. In describing the possibilities for constructive Western states manship, the 1980 article painted a sober picture of a deeply troubled region. Regarding South Africa, it underscored the ambiguity of political trends within Afrikanerdom. It was far