Department of Strategic Studies

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https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/15139
Department of Military Strategy was the old name

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Browsing Department of Strategic Studies by browse.metadata.advisor "Olivier, Laetitia"

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    A critical analysis of the military strategic lessons learned from South Africa’s participation in the force intervention brigade in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Pieterse, Johan Christiaan; Olivier, Laetitia; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and African Studies. Dept. of Political Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Security and Africa studies is a broad subject that is widely researched and documented, particularly the African battlespace. The nature and complexity of the African battlespace is a contemporary subject that requires in-depth research to understand, analyse and align future responses to situations of human insecurity, such as protracted armed conflict. The lingering conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a case in point. This study aims to provide a critical analysis of the strategic military lessons to be learned from the Republic of South Africa Battalion (RSA BATT) deployed under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) as a troop-contributing country of the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB). This study looked at the contemporary approach to addressing human insecurity in the DRC from a military perspective by discussing the RSA BATT’s contribution from 2013 to date. This study found that the RSA BATT’s contribution is driven by the South African Army Infantry corps’ strategy and philosophy, which, regardless of numerous limitations, strives to provide a tailored combat-ready user system (CRUS) to meet operational requirements within a complex African battlespace. Accordingly, this study analysed the SA Army infantry corps’ strategy by focusing on the ends, ways andmeans available to the RSA BATT in the DRC and the possible risks posed in achieving operational requirements. Few studies have provided an in-depth analysis such as this academic contribution. Therefore, this study joins the pool of understanding of contemporary multilateral military-strategic thinkers, which provides the audience with a South African military viewpoint on addressing contemporary and future multinational peace support operations (PSO).
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    The military-strategic implications of the decline of South Africa’s Defence capability
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) De Jager, André; Olivier, Laetitia; Van der Waag-Cowling, Noelle; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and Africa Studies. Dept. of Military Strategy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The decline of South Africa’s defence capabilities is a well-documented and politically acknowledged situation that inspired the review of the South African defence policy since 2010. The Defence Review 2015 was promulgated with a detailed strategic approach to restore the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) credible military capacity to fulfil South Africa’s defence ambition. The Defence Review 2015 process continued for five years with a deliberate focus to achieve consensus on South Africa’s defence ambition. The implementation of this policy is yet to be financed by the South African government. This inspired a critical look at the decline of South Africa’s defence capabilities through the contemporary lenses of the concepts of military security and strategy. A contemporary theoretical discussion of the concepts of military security and strategy in the post-Cold War era demonstrated that military security and the role of militaries in nations’ and regions’ security requirements remain a central concern for polities, yet within a broader and wider security discourse academically and as security policy advice. The concept of strategic context provided the study with a framework to discuss and analyse literature related to South Africa’s declining defence capabilities with the purpose to understand this reality in a strategic context and what it means for South Africa’s military security. A qualitative, interpretive, and thematic approach extracted thematic insights into South Africa’s declining defence capabilities in a strategic context to obtain a deep understanding of the reality since 1994. An analysis of government directives for defence since 1994, using contemporary understanding of military security and strategy, demonstrated that defence directives and policy thinking in South Africa continue to reflect enduring and developing military security and strategic thinking for the military establishment. South Africa’s declining defence capabilities, in a strategic contextual discussion and analysis, however showed significant contestation in the South African defence debate since 1994. The study ascribes the lion’s share of responsibility for South Africa’s declining defence capabilities to a deliberate political and bureaucratic demilitarisation of South Africa through disinvestment and defunding of the defence function, with a commensurate growing decline in political and academic interest in South Africa’s military. Politics leads in the approach of demilitarisation due to its prominent and dominant position to decide and fund. An idealistic academic perspective fuelled the process from a trusted position of advice. With non-offensive defence (NOD) principles coded in the Constitution of 1996 and all subsequent government legal and policy provisions, the scene was set to implement the deliberate demilitarisation of South Africa. The disconnect between the NOD military approach, which holds human security as the most appropriate approach to national security, and the strategic truth that a nation utilises its military to maintain the monopoly on force (organised violence) for defence against coercive threats should after two and a half decades of the existence of the SANDF be put to bed. The South African polity must honestly ask the question: What has South Africa gained from its broad and wide security approach of human security?