Howard Barrell : Over a Barrel
If ever a government feels the need to waste a large amount of money it can usually rely on its generals to show it how to do so. For there are few items as unproductive as military hardware or as ugly as rows of hangars, bunkers and huts scarring the landscape like acne.
South Africa’s generals have not been backward in this form of persuasion. During PW Botha’s presidency, the generals were used to getting precisely what they wanted – and they very nearly wanted it all. Under the new regime, each bout of belt- tightening since 1994 has elicited ever more desperate squeals of discomfort from them.
At mid-year, the generals’ agony reached the point where they warned MPs that, if cuts in defence spending were not reversed and if the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was not re-equipped, it would quite simply not be able to do its job. By that they meant the SANDF would not be able to defend the country, police the borders, guard polling booths at election time or, say, help a peasant community cope with flooding.
Generals are at least as talented at inducing apocalypse as they are at presenting themselves as the only defence against it. So it is not always sensible to believe their dire predictions.
Yet, in the case of the SANDF, our generals appear to have a good case. Almost everyone with a claim to some military expertise – from military commanders to security analysts and opposition defence spokespeople – agrees that the SANDF is woefully inadequately equipped and underfunded.
The navy, whose task it is to patrol our long coastline, is barely functional. It is not easy to come across reliable figures. But the non-availability of spare parts internationally for South Africa’s three ageing submarines makes keeping them serviceable so expensive that, at any one time, only one submarine is seaworthy. Moreover, two of six strike craft and at least five mine hunters and minesweepers have either been decommissioned, placed in reserve or cannibalised for spares in recent years.
The air force’s difficulties are similar. Because of the age of the equipment and shortage of spares, the air force is battling to maintain an effective deterrent and a minimal fighting component in the air. A significant proportion of attack craft – about 12 Impala fighter/trainers, 22 Mirage fighters, and 14 Cheetahs (South African-built variants of the Mirage) are out of commission or have recently been scrapped.
And the army is as ill-equipped as it is massively overmanned – because, among other reasons, the government has not yet set up a legal mechanism by which it can get rid of about 20 000 soldiers who are surplus to requirements in the new professional defence force. We will probably have to wait until after the election for the government to develop the necessary courage.
At the same time, Central Africa is gripped in a multinational conflict whose blowback may yet seriously destabilise closer neighbours such as Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The navy’s shortage of “blue- water” capacity means foreign trawler fleets are able to plunder our fishing grounds, one of our most valuable resources, with near impunity. And we have little ability to counteract any spread to our waters of the piracy currently moving down the east coast of Africa.
For these reasons I line up behind the generals on the issue of the composite arms deal with foreign manufacturers. If South Africa is going to have a defence force, it seems sensible for us to equip it appropriately. Otherwise, the SANDF is just a waste of time and the limited resources we already spend on it.
The rub is, of course: what equipment is appropriate to our defence needs? And then: are we prepared to pay what it costs to buy?
Our requirements for military equipment are set by a threat and task assessment. If we believe we are most likely to be keeping the peace or fighting in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo, it makes little sense to buy a whole lot of mightily expensive main battle tanks. They would look good on parade in the streets of Pretoria, but in Congo they would merely end up hemmed in by trees and stuck in the mud, presenting a ready target to any half- competent adversary with bare feet and a rocket-propelled grenade or bazooka. On the other hand, if we envisage that our battle for survival will be waged across the wastes of the Kalahari Gemsbok Park, the more tanks we have probably the better.
In almost any kind of warfare these days manoeuvrability and air supremacy are the main pillars of military doctrine. So a credible air strike capacity and helicopters are crucial – the more so, if South Africa is involved in peacekeeping operations to our north where difficult terrain makes helicopters all the more valuable for their ability to move men and materiel around quickly and easily.
The package of arms purchases put together by the Ministry of Defence has been arrived at intelligently. The four Corvettes and three submarines we intend buying form the Germans, and the four maritime helicopters from GKN-Westland, will improve the effectiveness of our coastal patrols; the 28 relatively sophisticated British-Swedish Gripen fighters and 24 British Hawk fighter-trainers will sharpen up our ability to assert our superiority on most African battlefields ; and the 40 Italian Agusta utility helicopters will give the SANDF the tactical and logistical flexibility that African terrain demands.
So far so good.
But after the Lesotho intervention, there are grounds to doubt the judgment of some of those whose job it is to provide our soldiers with their objectives and operational intelligence. This may cause some of us to reason that, if new weapons might encourage them to mount similar adventures in the future, we should definitely get no new weapons.
Perhaps. But this could leave South Africa dangerously exposed to very serious instability to the north of us; it could leave us with inadequate means to enforce decency in a future genocide abroad; and it could leave us without the force necessary to defend our legitimate interests against those who hold them in contempt.
Spending on weapons will always look idiotic when the only arithmetic applied is the kind that says that for the price of one Corvette we could build, say, 20 schools accommodating 20 000 children. The more demanding calculation, however, comes in answer to the question: what price are you and I prepared to pay in tax to protect one child, our own?
And, if we compare what we are paying for our defence to what others elsewhere in the world are willing to pay, we will find that you and I are paying far less.
ENDS
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