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South African Yearbook of International Affairs: 1998/99, JohannesburgAuthor(s): Alexander JohnstonSource: Foreign Policy, No. 115 (Summer, 1999), pp. 138-139Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149506 .

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Global Newsstand

be aware of the state of the president's health, and provisions would exist for temporary power transfer to the vice president should the pres- ident become incapacitated. However, the 25th Amendment has never been invoked, despite Ronald Reagan's hospitalization in 1981 after an assassination attempt and in 1985 for colon cancer. As Stanford Uni- versity radiology professor Herbert Abrams explains, the president's physician is torn between his duty to inform the public of the president's health and his desire to protect the president's privacy (and his own job)-an obstacle the framers of the amendment failed to anticipate. Abrams calls for the creation of a medical advisory committee on the health of the president to resolve this doctor-patient conflict.

- Caroline Benner FP

South African Yearbook of International Affairs

1998/99, Johannesburg

This yearbook is the third annual survey on South Africa's foreign relations to be published by the Johannesburg-based think tank, the South African Institute of International Affairs. Although the survey has been published for only three years, it has already gar- nered a reputation in the South African press as "the best one-stop for foreign-policy watchers." It is written in a style that is "emi- nently readable" for a diverse audience, including politicians, aca- demics, journalists, or business people. The 35 essays included in this volume cover the major bilateral and multilateral relation- ships of South Africa, a mid-ranking power that many see as piv- otal to dialogue between the developed and the developing world.

John Stremlau, a professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, describes U.S.-South African relations by borrowing a word that U.S. pres- ident Bill Clinton used in his address to the South African parlia- ment last year. The term is masakhane, which means "building together." But whereas Clinton employed the term as an emphatic commitment of purpose, Stremlau poses it as a question, suggesting that although he approves of the sentiment, he has concerns about whether these two countries will be able to engage each other on an equal footing.

138 FOREIGN POLICY

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For example, Stremlau notes that U.S. investment-both direct and indirect-is rising. However, he cautions that although America's direct investment is now larger than Britain's, U.S. firms employ only 71,000 people, while their British counterparts provide jobs for 128,000. As Stremlau puts it, South Africa's urgent need for "employment-generating trade and investment" must become a much higher mutual priority. Another obstacle to U.S.-South African masakhane, in Stremalu's view, is American insensitivity to smaller nations' hopes for "a strong and effective" United Nations.

Also in this volume, Princeton University professor Jeffrey Herbst traces the evolution of U.S. attempts to create a regional peacekeeping force in Africa after the debacles in Somalia and Rwanda. America's initial proposals for a standing army have been scaled back to the point where the "African Crisis Response Initiative" now only entails capac- ity training for African armies to meet future, unspecified contingen- cies. Inter-African rivalries, sensitivities to bold American leadership, and worries about resource constraints have all contributed to this water- ing-down process. South Africa was prominent in diluting the initial U.S. proposals, but Herbst warns that the country's diplomatic ambi- tions and relative wealth will inevitably lead to increased obligations.

Herbst's contribution provides a useful balance to Stremlau's, which strikes a clear note of advocacy in which the onus of masakhane is clearly on the stronger partner. An equal partnership often requires an equal amount of effort, even if one of the parties involved happens to be the sole remaining superpower.

-Alexander Johnston Professor of Politics University of Natal

Yale Journal of International Law Winter 1999, New Haven

Corruption has emerged as one of the gravest threats to poorer coun- tries' economic development. The United States, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Organization of Ameri- can States, and others have adopted measures to punish those who would seek to grease the palms of greedy officials. But a colloquium on extraterritorial bribery restrictions in the biannual Yale Journal of Inter-

SUMMER 1999 139

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