Jeff Schauer (History) published "Arming Zambia in the Dark Forest of International Politics: Kenneth Kaunda, Britain, and Arms Diplomacy, 1963-1971," in the first of two special issues of the Zambia Social Science Journal dedicated to assessing the life and legacy of the late-Kenneth Kaunda (1924-2021), president of Zambia between 1964 and 1991, and a central figure in Zambia's own history as well as the Organisation of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Frontline States, and the Commonwealth. The special issue grew out of a conference hosted by the Lusaka-based Southern African Institute for Policy and Research in 2021.
Schauer's article examines the politics behind UK-Zambia arms sales in the context of regional and Zambian developments during the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that although the neocolonialism of UK-Zambia relations was part of a British project to exert influence over former colonies, it was actively managed by the Zambian government to create a form of dependency that was manageable, useful, and impermanent, prior to a pivot to a new set of global security relations. The article also sheds light on the work of Zambian diplomatic missions abroad, social democratic Britain's arms sales to Africa, and the variety of international interlocutors on which the Zambian state drew as it crafted its military policy after independence.
