South African National Defence Force

Military

Main article: South African National Defence Force

SANDF soldiers

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was created in 1994,^[124][125] as an all volunteer force composed of the former South African Defence Force, the forces of the African nationalist groups (Umkhonto we Sizwe and Azanian People's Liberation Army), and the former Bantustan defence forces.^[124] The SANDF is subdivided into four branches, the South African Army, the South African Air Force, the South African Navy, and the South African Military Health Service.^[126] In recent years, the SANDF has become a major peacekeeping force in Africa,^[127] and has been involved in operations in Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,^[127] and Burundi,^[127] amongst others. It has also served in multi-national UN peacekeeping forces such as the United Nations Force Intervention Brigade for example.
South Africa is the only African country to have successfully developed nuclear weapons. It became the first country (followed by Ukraine) with nuclear capability to voluntarily renounce and dismantle its programme and in the process signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991.^[128] South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s^[128] According to former state president FW de Klerk, the decision to build a "nuclear deterrent" was taken "as early as 1974 against a backdrop of a Soviet expansionist threat."^[129] South Africa is alleged to have conducted a nuclear test over the Atlantic in 1979,^[130] although this is officially denied. Former president FW de Klerk maintained that South Africa had "never conducted a clandestine nuclear test."^[129] Six nuclear devices were completed between 1980 and 1990, but all were dismantled before South Africa signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991