ABSTRACT
The selection of Southern Africa for an empirical case study in conflict is made on the basis of the possibility of the development of the situation there into an actual rather than a potential threat to world peace. At the present time the so-called superpowers the United States, the Soviet Union and China have adopted relatively low-key policies in the area and have so far certainly not assigned it any high strategic priority. Certainly the current levels of peace and stability, if these terms can appropriately be used, on the whole favour the maintenance of the status quo. In this situation the interaction of internal and external factors tending to lead to change would seem to involve a particular risk of the escalation of violence.
