Apartheid

===="Total Onslaught"====
[[File:SADF Pamphlet1.PNG|thumb|Apartheid-era propaganda leaflet issued to South African military personnel in the 1980s. The pamphlet decries "Russian colonialism and oppression" in English, Afrikaans and Portuguese.]]
During the 1950s, South African military strategy was decisively shaped by fears of communist espionage and a conventional [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] threat to the strategic Cape trade route between the [[Atlantic Ocean|south Atlantic]] and [[Indian Ocean]]s.<ref name=Berridge>{{cite book|last=Berridge|first=G.R.|title=South Africa, the Colonial Powers and African Defence: The Rise and Fall of the White Entente, 1948–60|date=1992|pages=1–16, 163–164|publisher=Palgrave Books|location=Basingstoke|isbn=978-0333563519}}</ref> The apartheid government supported the US-led [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] (NATO), as well as its policy of regional ''[[containment]]'' against Soviet-backed regimes and insurgencies worldwide.<ref name=Lulat>{{cite book|last=Lulat|first=Y.G.M.|title=United States Relations with South Africa: A Critical Overview from the Colonial Period to the Present|date=1992|pages=143–146|publisher=Peter Lang Publishing, Incorporated|location=New York|isbn=978-0820479071}}</ref> By the late-1960s, the rise of Soviet [[client state]]s on the African continent, as well as Soviet aid for militant anti-apartheid movements, was considered one of the primary external threats to the apartheid system.<ref name=Campbell>{{cite book|last=Campbell|first=Kurt|title=Soviet Policy Towards South Africa|date=1986|pages=129–131|publisher=Palgrave-Macmillan|location=Basingstoke|isbn=978-1349081677}}</ref> South African officials frequently accused domestic opposition groups of being communist proxies.<ref name="Devils">{{cite book|last1=Herbstein|first1=Denis|last2=Evenson|first2=John|title=The Devils Are Among Us: The War for Namibia|date=1989|pages=14–23|publisher=Zed Books Ltd|location=London|isbn=978-0862328962}}</ref> For its part, the Soviet Union viewed South Africa as a bastion of [[neocolonialism]] and a regional Western ally, which helped fuel its support for various anti-apartheid causes.<ref name=Shultz>{{cite book|last=Shultz|first=Richard|title=Soviet Union and Revolutionary Warfare: Principles, Practices, and Regional Comparisons|url=https://archive.org/details/sovietunionrevo00shul/page/121|url-access=registration|date=1988|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sovietunionrevo00shul/page/121 121–123, 140–145]|publisher=Hoover Institution Press|location=Stanford, California|isbn=978-0817987114}}</ref>

From 1973 onwards, much of South Africa's white population increasingly looked upon their country as a bastion of the [[free world]] besieged militarily, politically, and culturally by Communism and radical [[black nationalism]].<ref name=Onslaught1>{{cite book|last=Potgieter|first=De Wet|title=Total Onslaught: Apartheid's Dirty Tricks Exposed|date=2007|pages=93–95|publisher=Zebra Press|location=Cape Town|isbn=978-1770073289}}</ref> The apartheid government perceived itself as being locked in a proxy struggle with the [[Warsaw Pact]] and by implication, armed wings of black nationalist forces such as [[Umkhonto we Sizwe]] (MK) and the [[People's Liberation Army of Namibia]] (PLAN), which often received arms and training in Warsaw Pact member states.<ref name=Shultz/> This was described as "Total Onslaught".<ref name=Onslaught1/><ref name=Minter>{{cite book|last=Minter|first=William|title=Apartheid's Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique|date=1994|pages=37–49|publisher=Witwatersrand University Press|location=Johannesburg|isbn=978-1439216187}}</ref>