Doctoral Degrees (Military History)

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Development of a supervised machine learning model to enhance urban water system management: a case study of Stellenbosch municipality
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Van der Walt, Rejoice; Theletsane, Kula Ishmael; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and Africa Studies: Military History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Globally, the challenges of conserving freshwater resources are becoming increasingly complex. Among the reasons cited by several researchers are the continuing growth of the world’s population, urbanisation, and the adverse effects of climate change on rainfall amounts and cycles. The complexity stems from the fact that human and natural systems are inextricably linked and interdependent. This makes managing urban water systems a major challenge that requires an integrated management approach capable of addressing the increasing variables that are interdependent and interrelated in an urban water system. To this end, tools continue to be developed to assist water resources managers to improve their management strategies, while data-driven methods are currently gaining popularity. Researchers have consistently emphasised the importance of accurately predicting the water demands of an urban water system as a prerequisite for effective freshwater management. However, the increasingly interconnected and interdependent variables that result from the interactions between human and natural systems pose a significant challenge to accurately predicting water demand. Consequently, traditional modelling tools are also increasingly becoming inadequate. The impacts of climate change, which lead to uncertainties in precipitation cycles, and rapid urbanisation are the main causes of the inadequacy of traditional modelling tools, as they cannot accurately quantify the uncertainties that arise in the system. As a result, data-driven machine learning techniques are becoming more common and are currently widely used in the Global North. In contrast, their use in the Global South is currently very limited, which is also true in South Africa. Another challenge posed by climate change is the changes in evapotranspiration and precipitation that limit terrestrial water storage and necessitate the search for alternative water sources. Among several options for alternative water sources, the case study area (Stellenbosch Municipality) has considered the reuse of municipal wastewater. However, to date, Stellenbosch Municipality has not developed this resource to any significant extent. It is therefore imperative to investigate the barriers to the development of this resource in the Stellenbosch Municipality. The main goal of this study was to use technology to develop a strategy for the sustainable management of Stellenbosch Municipality’s urban water system. The transdisciplinary research approach was the overarching research methodology used in this study because it provided the researcher with the flexibility to choose methods from different research traditions. Other research methods used in the transdisciplinary approach included a critical systematic literature review, interactive management, simulation, a standard cross-industry data-mining research process, and a case study. The mixed-methods exploratory sequential research design, characterised by two phases, was applied to the Stellenbosch Municipality as the case study, where the unit of analysis was urban water demand. The first phase consisted of collecting qualitative data through a soft management systems interactive research method from a purposively selected focus group of municipal wastewater specialists and community representatives. The collected qualitative data were modelled using Concept Star decision-making tools. The second phase consisted of quantitative data collection and simulation guided by standard cross-industry processes for data-mining research. Both traditional time series models and supervised machine learning models were developed for forecasting and predicting run-of-river abstraction for the Stellenbosch Municipality. Qualitative studies conducted on the factors that hinder the implementation of municipal wastewater reuse as an alternative water source in the Stellenbosch Municipality found that social issues were the main cause, followed by deficiencies in water laws, policies, and guidelines for the implementation of municipal wastewater reuse projects. The four principles of human-centred design were identified as an appropriate methodology for desirable implementation of wastewater reuse projects in the Stellenbosch Municipality. Quantitative studies that predicted urban water demand in the Stellenbosch Municipality showed nonlinearity between total water consumption and population/household growth, which should be the norm. From the exploratory data analysis (EDA), the variable run-of-river abstraction was set as the dependent variable for the modelling processes. The following models were developed: traditional Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average and Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average models and supervised machine learning models; thus AdaBoost, Gradient Boosting, Stochastic Gradient Boosting, Random Forest, and Artificial Neural Networks. The model with the best performance was Random Forest, followed by Stochastic Gradient Boosting, both of which the researcher saved and recommended for production. The study’s application of the transdisciplinary research methodology is a unique contribution to urban water management research. In addition, this study helps to highlight the importance of a human-centred design approach and the use of datadriven supervised machine learning techniques in the management of urban water systems, which the researcher considers a human-centred data-driven technological triad for the management of urban water systems. It is an effective framework for deploying novel approaches to water management in an urban setting that can be applied to other communities.
South African Defence Policy-Making, 1994-2015
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12 ) Jordaan, Evert; Esterhuyse, Abel; Mandrup, Thomas; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and Africa Studies: Military History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study focused on the making of South African defence policy from 1994 to 2015. Since democratisation, South African defence spending declined as socio-economic development became the national priority. After integration, the South African National Defence Force struggled with affordability regarding its personnel, main equipment, internal deployments, and increasing operational involvement in African missions. The research question was to determine why there is a disconnect between the means and ends in South African defence policy since 1994. To answer this question, a theoretical case study with emphasis on domestic policy-making was done. The work of Graham Allison was used to analyse South African defence policy-making in terms of rational choice, organisational process, and bureaucratic politics. This study found that South African defence policy is not made in a rational, logical, or cost-effective manner – as society expects – but is predominantly influenced by party-political considerations and vested military institutional interests. Established strategy processes of rational choice within the military, including threat assessments and cost–benefit analysis are prevented from informing defence policy or from addressing the separation between the means and ends of policy. From a perspective of organisational process, the military has, in the absence of coherent and knowledgeable political direction, protected its institutional interests, culture, and expensive conventional equipment by using standard procedures, conventional warfare doctrine, and secrecy to resist civilian-led policy processes, legislative oversight, affordability, and austerity measures. As a result, the military has become isolated from government and society, making it politically ineffective to convince Treasury and Cabinet to fund defence appropriately. In terms of bureaucratic politics, the liberation struggle norms, values, culture, and subjective practice of civil–military relations within the African National Congress, dominate the making of defence policy within the executive branch of government and the legislature, with little distinction between party and state. Although defence ministers have significant power to determine defence policy, most lack the expertise, skill, and influence in cabinet to curb ambitious foreign policy, obtain support for a bigger defence budget or to deal with difficult trade-offs involving matters such as personnel nationalisation. The prominent role of Treasury in national planning and budgeting, as well as the skill and influence of its leaders within cabinet and the presidency, created a tense relationship with the military. Military leaders encultured with a war-funding model never adjusted to the bureaucratic politics in a democracy where the defence budget has to be justified in terms of national priorities and financial principles. Treasury was never consulted regarding the available funding for new defence policy, and the military avoided deal-making and compromise with Treasury. Consequently, since democratisation, South African defence was unaffordable. A key argument is that South African defence policy is based on the ruling party’s fears about what the military could do to jeopardise democracy and domestic and regional security rather than objective security realities, budgets, and threats. To address these fears, the military was willingly and conveniently tied to a conventional role, force design, and funding pattern, from which it could not escape.
The wartime experiences of the men of the 2nd South African Infantry Division, 1940 – 1945
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12-15) Scherman, Jean-Pierre; Van der Waag, Ian Joseph; Kleynhans, Evert; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Sciences. School for Security and Africa Studies. Military History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The 2nd South African Infantry Division (2nd SA Inf Div) has long been considered the “lost” division in the history of South Africa’s Second World War. Unlike the other divisions raised by the Union Defence Force (UDF) during the war, the 2nd SA Inf Div’s combat record only stretched for approximately a year before the divisional headquarters and two infantry brigades were captured at Tobruk in North Africa in June 1942. Their short combat service, and the stigma of defeat, which clung to them even after the war’s end, meant a unique war experience – and an experience very different from other Springbok soldiers. Established on 23 October 1940, at Voortrekkerhoogte, the division had an authorised personnel strength of 21 315 service personnel, comprised solely of volunteers, who had signed the Africa Oath, whereby they consented to fight anywhere in Africa. After a year of training in the Union, the division embarked at Durban for the deserts of North Africa, where they experienced boredom and excitement as they constructed defences around El Alamein and were “blooded” during Operation Crusader. Their desert adventure ended suddenly with the capture of 10 722 members of the division at Tobruk. Initially held in prisoner of war (POW) camps in Africa and Italy, the Italian armistice in September 1943 provided the opportunity for many of the men to escape; the remainder were transported over the Alps to spend the remainder of the war as prisoners in Germany. Utilising the ‘New Military History’ approach, whereby the focus of a study shifts from the viewpoint of high-ranking men to that of the ordinary soldier on the ground, this dissertation examines the war-time experiences, from enlistment to demobilisation and memory, of these lost Springboks. Making use of their diaries, letters, notebooks, sketches, biographies, autobiographies, and stories, their war-time experiences are used to examine the formation, training, deployment, combat, and incarceration of the bulk of the men of the 2nd SA Inf Div. For the first time, the history of a South African infantry division has been studied in this manner - using the lived experiences of its men. Moreover, with sixty percent of all South Africa’s Second World War POWs originating from this division, this study provides further insight into the whole South African POW experience, including various divisional escape and evade narratives. This dissertation explains the network established by the UDF to aid escaping POWs, and the complex mission established to get the men home. Now, after more than eighty years, their voices have been rediscovered and examined, and an important gap in South Africa’s military historiography of the Second World War is filled.
The axis and Allied Maritime Operations around Southern Africa, 1939-1945
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Kleynhans, Evert Philippus; Van der Waag, Ian J.; Fedorowich, Edward Kent; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Sciences. School for Security and Africa Studies. Dept. of Military History.
ENGLISH SUMMARY : The majority of academic and popular studies on the South African participation in the Second World War historically focus on the military operations of the Union Defence Force in East Africa, North Africa, Madagascar and Italy. Recently, there has been a renewed drive to study the South African participation from a more general war and society approach. The South African home front during the war, and in particular the Axis and Allied maritime war waged off the southern African coast, has, however, received scant historical attention from professional and amateur historians alike. The historical interrelated aspects of maritime insecurity evident in southern Africa during the war are largely cast aside by contemporary academics engaging with issues of maritime strategy and insecurity in southern Africa. The all-encompassing nature and extent of the maritime war waged off southern Africa during the Second World War have been far more extensive than suggested in traditional sources. A key understanding of the maritime war is, in effect, incomplete without separate detailed discussions about the opposing Axis and Allied maritime strategies off the coast of southern Africa, the wartime shipping quandaries experienced by the Union of South Africa, and the South African coastal defences. The Axis maritime operations in southern African waters, the so-called maritime intelligence war, and the extended anti-submarine war waged in these waters are equally integral to the discussion. This dissertation aims to provide a critical, comprehensive analysis of the Axis and Allied maritime operations around the coast of southern Africa between 1939 and 1945. The study investigates this inclusive topic through the aforementioned research objectives. The study does not fall into the general ambit of a regimental, campaign or personal military history. Instead, it straddles the strata of war and offers fresh insights into an episode of the South African military history uncommonly investigated by contemporary military historians. The dissertation finds that the Axis and Allied maritime operations off the southern African coast were complex in nature, especially regarding the several strategic, military and economic aspects that have always underpinned them. Moreover, in gaining an understanding of these complex operations, the study reveals the general interrelatedness between the rival Axis and Allied maritime strategies and operations around the southern African coast. Previous studies have failed to recognise this interrelatedness, and have instead offered a one-sided, compartmentalised discussion on single aspects associated with the maritime war waged off southern Africa. This study thus distances itself from previous academic and popular historiography on the subject. It offers, rather, a fresh, in-depth discussion underpinned by extensive archival research, access to previously classified material, and a wealth of secondary sources.

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