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Whether we like to admit it or not, the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) is broken.

Most of the navy’s ships are tied to the dock for lack of maintenance, most of the air force’s aircraft are grounded for the same reason, most army equipment is in storage and it does not have enough troops for all its missions and tasks.

Add to that the fact that most equipment and systems have not been modernised or upgraded in 20 years, the ships and aircraft lack key weapons, and there are critical capability gaps, most visibly the lack of maritime surveillance aircraft, airlifters and counter-drone systems. 

This should be no surprise. It is the inevitable — and repeatedly predicted — result of the government’s mismanagement and neglect of the country's defence force. 

Armed forces need to be tough, resilient and flexible machines. They must be able to fight wars, support peace efforts, support the police, carry out search and rescue missions, fight fires, deliver emergency supplies and repair infrastructure after natural disasters. The SANDF has done all of this in the past, and even assisted other countries after disasters and provided logistic support for their elections.    

But armed forces are also complex machines, comprising a multiplicity of disparate elements and components that must function together with synchronicity. Like any complex machine, they must be managed, maintained and employed correctly. Otherwise they will break. That may happen slowly and be barely visible in its early stages, or it can be sudden and catastrophic. But it will come; costly failure will result, and recovery will always be costly, difficult and time consuming.

In our case the collapse has been slowed and to an extent disguised by the “can do” approach of our soldiers. Despite gross underfunding and operational overstretch, the SANDF has somehow managed to handle every task assigned to it by the same government that has so wilfully neglected it. But those times are past. The SANDF is no longer able to perform its primary functions and has only limited capacity to perform secondary functions — despite most members doing their best and some working minor miracles to keep things from falling apart.

Picture: FREDDY MAVUNDA/BUSINESS DAY
Picture: FREDDY MAVUNDA/BUSINESS DAY

One key problem has been that neither the cabinet nor the National  Treasury have any understanding of how a defence force functions, nor of the importance of training (army field training exercises, aircrew flying, ships going to sea), maintenance (of equipment and facilities), modernisation and upgrades (to keep key equipment and systems effective over long service lives), replacement and repurposing of older equipment (for instance the 40-year-old Ratel) and resilience (adequate stocks of munitions and spare parts).

They have not even been able to grasp the importance and impact of the loss of maritime patrol capability; nor the failures resulting from deploying inadequate and inadequately supported forces. Bangui and Mozambique are salutary examples. The result is that we can no longer pretend to have an effective defence force. At a time of spreading conflict in Africa and renewed major power competition, there will be fallout for SA and Africa. 

It is past time to accept that reality and understand the implications. This is not a time to settle for a border guard. At the very least we need to be able to protect vital interests and not have to hope others will do so for us. 

The 2015 Defence Review was based on the assumption that SA would participate in regional security missions at levels commensurate with our economic strength, much as we did through the 2000s — three large contingents on extended missions, plus smaller, shorter duration missions — and added contingency capability. That is no longer possible. 

The 1998 Defence Review was based on an assumption that SA would not engage in regional security missions beyond one battalion for one year for a benign peace support mission. That was naive, as events demonstrated — three major extended operations and a shorter mission were required by the mid-2000s. But even that limited capability was not funded and has meanwhile been lost.

So, what now? Perhaps the most practical option would be to take the 1998 force design as a useful interim objective that can be attained within a reasonable period, and that can serve as a basis for enhanced capability in the more distant future. While terribly neglected, most of the necessary equipment is on hand, as are enough competent people.

That could be done in overlapping phases, much as the 2015 Defence Review proposed: 

  • Stop further decline and loss of capabilities: first, focus on a limited range of capabilities and a limited number of units before expanding across the services; and intensify military education and training. 
  • Rebuild stocks of munitions and spares and rebuild in-house maintenance, overhaul and repair capabilities. 
  • Enhance/expand defence intelligence and special forces (to give early warning and buy time). 
  • Establish “battle labs” to study optimal use of unmanned systems and how to counter them; and move ahead with establishing cyber-operations capability.
  • Implement a short-service system linked to vocational training (to provide a flow of young people through the defence force back into the economy with a skill or trade), which will rejuvenate the forces and stop cluttering up the system with over-age personnel. 
  • Restore existing capabilities, modernised and upgraded as per original plans (acquiring weapons planned for the aircraft and ships). 
  • Close critical capability gaps (maritime surveillance aircraft, counter-drone systems, offshore patrol vessels and base protection systems) and begin with urgent re-equipment (for instance, replacing the 40-year-old Ratel with the Badger infantry combat vehicle).
  • Finally, look at other capabilities set out in the 1998 Defence Review but never funded or implemented (heavy airlift, long-range/long-endurance maritime aircraft to monitor the island waters and meet our search and rescue obligations, a second fighter squadron).

Properly planned and phased, this would not be inordinately expensive, though certainly not cheap, and would also benefit our defence industry, which could expand employment and again generate useful export revenues. 

That all done, we could then finally look at acquiring the equipment and systems needed for whatever regional security role we would like to play.   

• Heitman is an independent security and defence analyst. 

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