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Defence – time for Plan C

28th November 2014

By: Keith Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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Some weeks ago, three economists – Professor Jannie Rossouw, head of the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Economic and Business Sciences, Adele Breytenbach and Fanie Joubert, both at the University of South Africa – published (in Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe) the latest results from research that they have been conducting over the past few years. Their results rightly got a lot of attention. They warned that the country was confronted with the danger of a “fiscal cliff” – in their words, “the danger that the SA government might run out of income to cover growing government expenditure”. They reported that, in 2012, social grants and civil service remuneration had together accounted for 56.4% of government revenues (up from 44.3% in 2008). Should this trend continue, social grants and civil service remuneration would account for 100% of government revenues by 2026 – just 12 years from now.

This situation has all sorts of very difficult consequences. Obviously, things cannot and will not go on as they have been going, but neither will this trajectory be abruptly terminated. Things are likely to get fiscally worse before they get better. Strict priorities will have to be set and kept. It is a safe bet that defence will not be one of those priorities. I previously expressed scepticism that the Defence Review would ever be implemented. It has still not been debated in Parliament. Given the very tight fiscal constraints facing the government, I think that the Review can be declared ‘dead on arrival’, which is a pity, because many people devoted a lot of time and hard work to it. It is not impossible that, in a game of charades, Parliament might actually approve it. But I am pretty certain it will never be implemented.

Of course, some of the recommendations of the Defence Review will be implemented, as and when funding permits. But it will be a piecemeal approach. The South African Army (SA Army) is getting its new Badger infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs – Project Hoefyster). But there is still no indication that other projects, for new armoured personnel carriers (APCs – Project Sepula) and cross-country trucks (Project Vistula), will actually be implemented. The South African Navy (SAN) seems set to get its new patrol vessels under Project Biro and a new hydrographic vessel under Project Hotel. But, while the threat of piracy in the Indian Ocean is decreasing, the piracy threat on Africa’s West Coast is increasing. The threat is stimulating naval expansion and re-equipment programmes in many countries from at least Ghana to Angola. There is a clear need for the new ships. Hydrographic surveys are very important with regard to establishing a country’s rights in terms of seabed and under-seabed resources. And the SAN’s current hydrographic ship is now very old.

Yet the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is in a parlous condition and something has to be done, as this situation undermines the country’s foreign policy and reduces the ability of the SANDF to assist the civil authorities and respond to disasters, whether at home or abroad. Plan B would be to cut the number of personnel in the SANDF and use the funds freed up to create a smaller, but better equipped and trained, force, without any need to increase the overall defence budget. But that won’t happen, because of the high unemployment levels in the country.

So that leaves Plan C. That is, copy other countries with limited defence budgets and no external threat and explicitly maintain units at different levels of readiness and capability. Indeed, even the mighty Soviet Army, in the Cold War, operated this system. Category I formations were manned at 75% to 100% of their establishment, Category II formations at 50% to 70% and Category III formations at 10% to 33% (and with only 33% to 50% of their required equipment). In the 1980s, only those units assigned to the various ‘Groups of Forces’ facing the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and those assigned to Afghanistan were kept at full strength. Currently, the British Army is being restructured into a high readiness Reaction Force and a lower (but not low) readiness Adaptable Force.

In fact, the SAN already operates in this way, with its vessels rotating through different levels of readiness. Normally, for example, one submarine is fully operational, one is engaged in training and one is under maintenance. Now, the SA Army has 13 regular infantry battalions, plus 44 Parachute Regiment. These could be divided between a very high readiness rapid reaction force (basically, the Special Forces Brigade plus 44 Parachute Regiment – this may, effectively, already exist), a high readiness strategic reserve (the three mechanised infantry battalions that are to be equipped with the Badger, plus the army’s armoured car, tank, field artillery, air defence artillery and field engineer (battalions), trained for conventional warfare) and the remaining units could be divided into peacekeeping and border security units. Peacekeeping units, for United Nations and/or African Union missions, would be structured as motorised infantry battalions and equipped with existing but refurbished equipment – for example, Ratel IFVs reworked as APCs. Border security battalions would be trained to operate at only company level and below, and be restructured to replace heavy weapons companies with an extra infantry company. They would be lightly armed light infantry units with refurbished mine-protected vehicles. A rough suggestion would be to have four or five peacekeeping battalions and five or six border battalions. (At present, 13 SA Army companies are patrolling the country’s borders.)

The units in the different categories would be allocated different training and equipment budgets, ensuring all were capable of properly executing their different assigned missions.
This would require, however, careful career planning to ensure that long-service officers and noncommissioned officers were rotated through the different categories to provide variety, stimulus and career development. Such a structure would also make clear to everyone – not least the politicians – the real (as opposed to the paper) strength and capabilities of the army.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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