Changing international realities and the configuration of the South African National Defence Force in the 21st century

[摘要] English: The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is currently in the process ofevaluating its policies, strategies and force design in order to ensure that it is optimallypostured and configured to successfully carry out its ordered tasks in the 21st century.Success will depend on how well the SANDF analyses the environment in which it will haveto function, as well as how well it prioritises its objectives when making decisions about themost appropriate approach to the development of a national security strategy, forceplanning and the role of the military as one of the components of national power.The study examines developments in the South African defence debate since 1994. Twokey policy documents, namely the South African White Paper on Defence of 1996 and theSouth African Defence Review of 1998, established the national defence posture anddefined the functions and tasks of the Department of Defence. The primary organisingprinciple behind these documents was its commitment to designing the SANDF for its socalledprimary role, namely the preservation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity ofSouth Africa against an external military threat. This principle was ultimately used as ayardstick to determine the SANDF's force design, force structure and capabilityrequirements. The focus on the primary tasks of the SANDF has, over time, proven to bemisaligned with the governmental objectives to be achieved and it has become evident thatthe force design and structure as prescribed in these documents fail to adequately addressthe current and future operational requirements of the SANDF. Furthermore, manydefence analysts have pointed out that critical issues such as the continuing misalignmentbetween the allocated defence budget and expected defence outcomes have also not beenaddressed. This has created a dilemma in which the SANDF, despite the acquisition ofstate-of-the-art air and naval assets in 1998, is still not optimally configured, adequatelytrained or equipped or sufficiently funded to execute and sustain its required operationaltasks. Furthermore, due to significant changes that have taken place in the securityenvironment since 1994, it has become evident that the principles on which the SANDFwas originally designed might no longer be relevant to current defence requirements.The study includes an analysis of the 21st century's security environment �?a threatenvironment that is, and will be, characterised by political and social complexity and avariety of modes of warfare that will converge in unexpected ways. Defence forces willhave to develop capabilities to conduct a wide range of missions simultaneously whileretaining the capacity to operate across the full spectrum of warfare �?from traditional warfighting and peacekeeping to disaster management and support to other governmentdepartments. These requirements demand a reassessment of the current SANDF forcedesign and force structure as the current frameworks have proven to be misaligned withcurrent Government deployment requirements and the characteristics of the prevailingAfrican security environment.The study is based on the premise that significant changes should be made to the currentSANDF force design and structure. The 2014 Defence Review highlights the fact that theSANDF is, and will be, expected to play a variety of roles in Africa, and that it will often bedeployed in 'secondary' functions such as peacekeeping, border management andhumanitarian support. Despite this shift to a more holistic and multifunctional approach todefence, which addresses both traditional and non-traditional roles of the military duringJoint, Interdepartmental, Interagency and Multinational (JI2M) operations, the 2014Defence Review continues to structure the SANDF in accordance with traditional singleservice organisational structures. These structures, the SA Army, the SA Navy, the SA AirForce and the South African Medical Health Services are not optimally configured to meetthe demands of JI2M deployments. Defence planners refer to the adage that structurefollows strategy, therefore, if the SANDF is expected to function in a joint environment, itsforce design and force structure should reflect this 'jointness' as the essence of its designprinciples.The study concludes that the logical cost-effective solution to the configuration of theSANDF would be the adoption of a modular force design, based on composite brigadesthat could be utilised as interchangeable building blocks which can be tailor-made forspecific deployments, rather than to continue with the cumbersome traditional practice ofusing the services as building blocks. Modular force design will enable the SANDF to havea mass organic, scalable, joint precision effect, at an increasingly higher level than before,and enable the SANDF to balance the principles of concentration of force with economy ofeffort.

[发布机构] University of the Free State