ABSTRACT
In the Southern Africa of the colonial period, all but the most purblind of the White settlers appreciated the underlying weakness of their situation when set against the size and potential strength of the African majority. In South Africa, there was one White for every fi ve non-Whites, in Rhodesia one for 24 and in Portuguese Africa one for 40. The determination of all the governments in Southern Africa and in Lisbon to maintain White rule for the indefi nite future meant that the security dimension was one which had to be considered with the greatest of care, since failure to keep the hatches fi rmly battened down was likely to have dire consequences for the survival of White minority rule. This chapter, therefore, will concern itself, initially, with the ways in which the Whites maintained control and, later, with the methods employed by the independent governments to ensure the maintenance of order in the new states over which they presided. This search for security is indeed likely to dominate the future of Southern Africa as much as it has dominated that of its past.
