Up to 40 years ago Russia, or the USSR as it then was, received its SA military information via Dieter Gerhardt, who was later convicted of high treason. Now our deputy president spends months in the Russian Federation and defence minister Thandi Modise is currently in Moscow attending a “security conference” together with representatives of another 35 states, many of them African (“As Vladimir Putin calls for stronger armies, Thandi Modise preaches peace,” August 17).
How our world has changed. It is also becoming increasingly bipolar, a tendency exacerbated by the Ukrainian war, and despite the officially neutral stance adopted by our government it leans toward the totalitarian side, currently consisting of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
As the ANC disintegrates on the way to 2024, it shouldn’t surprise if lessons and assistance are accepted from these friends to retain power in the event of an electoral defeat. Circumstances may even have reached a stage where perceived Russian support is deemed crucial to prospective candidates at December’s ANC elective conference.
Geopolitically, Modise’s Russian trip was surely a two-fingered response to US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s recent visit, which ate the dust of Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s earlier grain-for-support initiative. Despite postulations to the contrary, the West has, in effect, surrendered Africa to the totalitarians.
This may cast the visit by the DA’s John Steenhuisen to the Ukraine in a different light. Rather than just a publicity stunt, was it signaling to the West that there is sufficient opposition to ANC foreign policy to warrant support even if that opposition is confined to the Western Cape at present?
Could it be that in the event of a hot war, keeping the Cape sea route open might still be important to the West? Just because South Africans are self-absorbed with internal problems they mustn’t think neutrality can be maintained in a global conflict.
James Cunningham
Camps Bay
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