South Africa's return to the international community is fraught with ambiguities and contradictions. The gap between hopes and outcomes, between popular expectations and policy choices, may become wide. Questions concerned with Southern African security appear to have been amplified with the rise of the new South Africa. Southern Africa will be acutely affected by the way South Africa's policy-makers think about Southern Africa. The present report argues that the strategic culture which informs South Africa's thinking on issues of war and peace has been little touched by the formal transfer of political power. It also points to new impulses in the political process which may help shift thinking on questions of regional security and change.

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