HELMOED RÖMER HEITMAN: Broken SANDF needs huge overhaul to be fit for regional role

The government must finally accept that we no longer have armed forces capable of defending the country, protecting our vital interests or playing any useful regional security role. That has been made all too clear by events and the derelict state of SA National Defence Force (SANDF) prime mission equipment as reported to parliament. Any but the most benign deployment will serve little purpose other than to place soldiers at pointless and unnecessary risk. 

Accordingly, we must step back from any regional role until the SANDF can be repaired and restored to operational effectiveness. The only exception should be in the event of a major crisis in our immediate neighbourhood that presents a threat to SA or our vital interests. We must also stop using the SANDF to make up for the failings of other government departments. There must be a single focus on rebuilding a defence force capable of performing its primary functions of defending SA and protecting its vital interests. Anything else is secondary and must wait.

The only tasks should be border, maritime and air space surveillance and security, which are also valuable for training individuals and units, but all of which will require considerable investment to restore capability. Beyond that the SANDF should keep the special forces and a small reaction force at readiness to deal with contingencies. For the rest, the SANDF should stand down and focus on repairing itself and restoring capability. 

The priority should be to establish study and analysis teams at all levels to: 

• Study current and recent conflicts to derive lessons at the strategic, operational, tactical and minor tactics levels and how they could be incorporated in defence policy, strategy, doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures. 
• Study the new, emerging technologies with the defence industry to develop concepts for employment in the SANDF. 
• Establish “battle labs” to develop concepts for optimal integration of new operational and tactical concepts and new technologies into the SANDF.
• Make recommendations for future defence policy and strategy, operational doctrines, tactics, techniques and procedures. 
• Make recommendations regarding the required capabilities and future force design.

In this context “all levels” means exactly that:

• The presidency and cabinet to set the medium- and long-term objectives.
• The department of defence, the chief director strategy and plans, the Joint Operations Division to focus on the strategic and operational levels.
• Army, air force, navy, special forces, defence intelligence and supporting divisions to focus on operational and tactical levels.
• The branches and corps of those services and divisions, and individual units that might choose to set up study teams, to focus on the tactical level, minor tactics, techniques and procedures.
• The Centre for Military Studies, the Defence College, the War College, the service staff colleges and the branch/corps schools to provide the academic underpinning and to look at the long-term future.

This effort should be integrated across the organisation with the teams at the various levels engaging with each other throughout, and with the Decision Support Institute of Armscor and the defence technology arm of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). This should be established as a permanent defence studies concept, system and organisation.

While that process is in train, the SANDF will also have other things to do: 

• Reconfigure education, training and development to entrench mission command and to develop leader initiative.
• Adopt free-play tactical joint exercises as the norm, to further develop leader initiative and mental agility and entrench the joint approach. 
• Revisit logistic doctrine to properly align it with a mission command approach and to the demands of high-tempo joint operations. 
• Bring existing equipment and systems back into service, modernising and upgrading as required and reconfiguring for other roles if it is no longer fit for purpose in the original role (for example, Ratels from mechanised to motorised infantry employment). 
• Implement the “spiral upgrade path” the navy had set out for the frigates and submarines and equivalent plans of the air force for, particularly, its combat aircraft, and the army for its prime mission equipment. 
• Rebuild stocks of munitions, spares and general stores to realistic peacetime levels that are based on the recent usage/utilisation experience of other armed forces. 
• Work with the defence industry to ensure adequate local production capability.   
• Re-establish “in house” maintenance, repair and overhaul capabilities and work with the industry to re-establish those capabilities there.

Realistically these programmes will take at least a decade of focus and adequate funding.

In parallel with those programmes, the SANDF should endeavour to close key capability gaps and replace obsolete equipment. That would include:

• Acquiring weapons for the Gripen (beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles, stand-off air-to-ground weapons, antiradar weapons), Hawk (the latter two), Rooivalk (Mokopa and guided rockets) and Super Lynx (as for Rooivalk plus anti-submarine torpedoes and sonar buoys).
• Acquiring new weapons for the frigates and submarines to enhance and expand their capabilities. 
• Acquiring unmanned systems for all three combat services and for the special forces and defence intelligence, including unmanned aerial, ground, surface and subsurface systems.
• Acquiring counter-drone systems (electronic and kinetic) for mobile forces, static bases and ships. 
• Acquiring precision munitions for the army’s 155mm guns, 127mm rocket launchers and 120mm mortars, and precision weapons for the armoured corps and the infantry.
  
• Acquiring air-defence systems for the army. 
• Acquiring maritime surveillance aircraft to cover the mainland waters (something like a Casa-212 or King Air fitted with the appropriate radar and optronic sensors) and for long-range/high-endurance missions to cover the island waters and to meet our SA Search and Rescue Organisation commitments (the only real option here would be the maritime C-130 variant). 
• Replacing the 40-year-old Ratel with the Badger, repurposing the Ratel fleet to meet some of the replacement armoured personnel carrier requirement.
• Acquiring offshore patrol vessels to cover the exclusive economic zone of the mainland and islands, freeing the frigates for more distant missions such as the Mozambique Channel.
• Establishing dedicated special forces airlift capability.

This programme will most probably extend well beyond the 10 years required for the other two programmes, depending on the urgency dictated by the evolving strategic situation and the funding made available. 

Only after these three programmes have been completed can we begin to again consider SA’s regional role and the acquisition of the equipment and systems required for that role, for instance heavy/long-range airlift and sealift. 

• Heitman is an independent security and defence analyst.