ABSTRACT
Contemporary democratic transitions take on forms that reflect power relations between elite incumbents and opponents seeking to dismantle authoritarian political systems. All transitions, however, require negotiations of some sort or another, including political gamesmanship not only between stakeholders in civil society but also between military actors. This is especially the case where each player, as in South Africa, possesses their own armed forces. Eventually the decision settled on the collective approach, so long as it would not impede South African Defence Force constitutional responsibilities and operational effectiveness. MK (the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC)) would settle for nothing less, and integration en masse held out several crucial symbolic and strategic advantages. Certainly both armies realized that, in the absence of a military pact and irrespective of any political deals, South Africa would be reduced to a wasteland that neither wished to inherit.
