Tomorrow, South Africa’s finance minister will address parliament and the country with the national budget. The economy has stalled, with below-one percent growth plaguing a declining treasury. In military terms, these conditions will result in a budgetary bloodbath for the SANDF.
While this is understandable from a fiscal point of view – justifying military budget increases during austere economic times is never a popular political move – it will have significant consequences. The result of this inevitable downscaling is that the defence force will be further away from the recommendations of the Defence Review than ever before. A hoped-for 2 or 3 percent increase in defence spending is now a fantasy. The SANDF is likely to experience another ‘pruning’ of its budget, if anything. ‘Pruning’ in this case is becoming more like ‘amputation’.
Nonetheless the budgetary evisceration is coming, and as argued before, there is no plan B for the current Defence Review path. Although a sound policy, the 2015 Defence Review is simply unachievable. For the defence force, the task of matching strategic objectives with significant financial restraints has never been harder. The Defence Review laid out an array of foreign and domestic objectives for the defence force. All of them were coherent and entirely achievable under favourable funding levels. Upholding a robust expeditionary capability whilst maintaining sovereign defence required effectively three SANDF divisions. Without the funding, it’s time to look at an alternative to this.
An effective African defence force would be one that maintains a high elasticity in its ability to respond to multiple threats. This is possible, but requires a dramatic rethink of just where the SANDF should be headed. The Defence Review painted an impressive picture of high-end, technologically-advanced forces spanning all spectrums of warfare. Without funding, this is impossible with current troop levels and strategic objectives.
The lack of a plan B is not the fault of the Defence Review’s authors. They were under clear instructions from former Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu to pursue a long-term framework that was based on the assumption the money would come. Since then the minister has been removed from her portfolio and the money has not come.
So what happens now?
A small, highly capable force could be equipped with modern weapons and tactics, while fulfilling many of South Africa’s strategic needs. The current alternative to this would be to see a large, over-staffed military slide into decline and, ultimately, obsolescence. The South African military is in for an extremely harsh budgetary year. It may well be time to shelve the Defence Review’s primary aims in favour of a realistic, intelligent alternative.
The stupendously incompetent and incoherent commentary and explanations of the SANDF’s structure, systems, activities and equipment during the past weekend’s “festivities” in Port Elizabeth have done nothing to improve the public image of the SANDF.
Would any sane person (who has no specific prior knowlege of defence matters – an average citizen/voter) support the Navy’s need for submarines if this is the official explanation of why they need them? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iegPYB8ZVdw
To be fair to the much-maligned Commander, he was attempting to use the example of sharks to explain the deterrent effect that submarines have on other navies. As sharks deter you from swimming, submarines deter you from entering a country’s waters. That’s much clearer in the longer version of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8_fMKy-HrE
Unfortunately, he completely fluffed the delivery. Whether this was caused by nerves, unfamiliarity with English or just being unsuited to the role of on-camera spokesperson I can’t tell, though I agree that the SANDF ought to have chosen someone more comfortable and experienced with public speaking to provide the commentary.
Indeed, I blame the SANDF’s PR people for their poor selection of spokespeople. The consistently incompetent PR of the SANDF over many years has very badly alienated the general public, even people who had positive experiences of military service in the “good old days” have become scathingly negative about the military.
The latest nonsense about “stolen aircraft” is yet another example.
You see there is an obsession by the SANDF and other arms of government to push forward a non english speaking spokesperson who either has a poor grasp of english or none at all.
Correctly using metaphor requires a fairly high level of proficiency, in any language. The Commander was doing ok until he tried the shark metaphor, then it all fell apart.
Keep it simple I always say.
He could have just said the Submarines are a good force multiplier and a good deterrent and a good reconnaissance tool for a well balanced and technologically modern navy.
I’ve heard since that it was a bad case of nerves and the occasion getting to him. A similar thing happened to the Lt Col doing the commentary for the SAAF flypast, when he rather amusingly claimed he couldn’t say how many Gripens the SAAF had.
I did on-camera commentary thing once and was a huge bundle of nerves the entire time, so I sympathise with both officers.
So yes, it’s unfair to the guys picked, because doing well as an on-camera spokesperson actually requires some level of training and experience.
What bugs me is that the SANDF seem to be doing absolutely nothing to respond to the severe roasting the video clip is getting on Facebook etc. If they are even aware of it!
The problem is that those authorised to deal with it likely don’t know about it, don’t understand it or don’t care.
Those who do know about, understand the implications and care both for the unfortunate Commander and the SANDF don’t have the authority to do anything about it.
This is the problem that happens when all PR for a massive organisation is centralised in two small offices.