Organised crime-a threat to Botswana’s national security

In the past, existential threats were mainly from external state actors who were a danger to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a nation state. For example, a country like Botswana used to be surrounded by hostile regimes in the form of Apartheid South Africa in the South and an aggressive white minority regime in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), who used to carry out cross border invasions into Botswana resulting in many human casualties and destruction of infrastructure.

Furthermore, civil wars in neighbouring Mozambique and Angola, together with the liberation war in Namibia meant that at the time Botswana was existing in a hostile environment. These were real national security threats at the time.