SA troops a poorly funded border guard

The SA National Defence Force (SANDF) has been tasked to deploy about 2,900 troops to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to “assist in the fight against illegal armed groups in the eastern DRC”.

This contingent will form a part of a Southern African Development Community (Sadc) force that was planned as 5,000 troops with air support but now appears likely to be smaller, with minimal air support. That does not bode well.

The most obvious problem is the delusion that a 5,000-strong force will be able to achieve what the 13,500strong UN “stabilisation mission” (Monusco) force could not. The size of the region alone presents a challenge. The three eastern provinces of Ituri and North and South Kivu are 190,000 km² in extent and have a combined population of about 19.5-million. Even just North Kivu, apparently the focus of the Sadc force, has an area of 59,483 km² and a population of about 8.15million.

That is a lot of ground for so small a force with minimal, if any, air support.

Bosnia (51,229km2, 3.5-million population) required 54,000 troops to stabilise, including heavy forces and air support. The peacekeeping operation in Liberia (43,000km2, 5.5-million) required 19,600 troops. The operation in Sierra Leone (71,740km2, 8.9million) required 17,000.

The next issue is force ratios. It is generally accepted that counterinsurgency requires roughly 10 soldiers per guerrilla, because of the need to protect key areas and because guerrillas are so difficult to pin down. The March 23 Movement (M23), apparently the primary target, is estimated to be 3,000 strong. Just countering M23 and not taking into account armed groups allied to it or any Rwandan support, the Sadc force should have about 30,000 troops, not 5,000. M23 is also better equipped than most guerrillas, apparently having guided mortar munitions and night vision equipment, and probably some level of communications intelligence capability. It is a force to be taken seriously.

There are also guerrillas that are using DRC as a base to attack Uganda (Allied Democratic Forces, with about 1,200 armed personnel), FDLR (Rwanda) with about 1,000 and FNL (Burundi) with a few hundred. That’s not including 100 or more local militias and criminal gangs. All are well embedded in the local population and are familiar with the terrain.

Another issue is air support. Given the size of the region, air support would be crucial even for a far larger force — for reconnaissance and surveillance, for mobility and for combat support. The Sadc force was to have air support, but the SA Air Force is ineffective, with most of its aircraft grounded for lack of maintenance funding, so it is not clear just what will be available.

Operations will also have to take into account that M23 has manportable surface-to-air missiles (used to shoot down a Pakistani Puma in 2022) and seems to have Rwandan mobile surface-to-air missile systems protecting them. That suggests a need for stand-off weapons, to allow engagement from outside their effective range, or air defence suppression weapons. The SA Air Force has none, nor probably do the other Sadc air forces. Flying very low is a partial alternative but exposes aircraft to machine-gun fire, as has happened to two SA Air Force Oryx.

The Sadc mission lacks the required strength and capabilities and has, at best, minimal chance of success. The SANDF is in no position to offset those weaknesses.

How did we get here? It started with the delusion in 1995/96 that the SANDF would “never” operate in Africa bar one battalion for one year for benign peacekeeping. That delusion drove the 1997/98 Defence Review, leading to, among other poor decisions, halving of airlift capacity, retiring the tanker aircraft and, arguably, the inadequate size of the Rooivalk fleet (12 as against the planned 36).

Reality differed. By the mid-2000s the SANDF had three battalions deployed in Africa (Burundi, DRC, Darfur) and briefly a fourth in Comoros in 2006, plus SA Air Force and SA Navy elements (on Lake Kivu). Then came the Central African Republic deployment at the end of 2012. All presented lessons, not least the need for airlift, air reconnaissance and combat air support.

Underfunding has crippled key capabilities, particularly in the SA Air Force, and left the SA Army lacking sufficient troops to meet all the tasks assigned to it. Yet now the government wants to play a regional security role with what amounts to a poorly funded border guard. That does not bode well.

The deployment to the DRC is entirely out of line with government undertakings in the 1996 white paper on defence, which specified that the government “will request from parliament sufficient funds to enable the SANDF to perform its tasks effectively and efficiently” (chapter 3, paragraph 43.4); and “will not endanger the lives of military personnel through improper deployment or the provision of inadequate or inferior weapons and equipment” (chapter 3, paragraph 43.6).

It is also out of line with the principles set out in the 1998 Defence Review, which specified in chapter 5 that operations should “have a clear mandate, mission and objectives” (5.4); there should be “realistic criteria for terminating the of the extent of the operation”’(5.5); SANDF s and “there must be a realistic appreciation involvement in the light of its capabilities and other commitments”.

Nor is it in line with the principles set out in the 1999 white paper on peace missions, which set out as requirements that:

There should be a clear international mandate “linked to concrete political solutions” (6.2);The committed forces are “sufficient to attain the stated goals and objectives”; “SA will not commit itself to participating in any peace mission [that] is patently under-resourced and which does not have sufficient means to achieve the set mandate” (6.3);“The possible expansion of the SANDF’s other secondary roles — for instance, support to the [SA Police Service] and border protection — should be considered prior to any agreement to participate in a particular peace support operation” (6.3);“SA contingents will be ... adequately structured and equipped to carry out the tasks they are assigned”; and “SA should also be assured of clear exit criteria before committing a national contingent to any peace mission. This aspect refers to the achievement of a desirable political end state to the involvement within an acceptable period of time.” (6.6)

There are strategic and economic reasons for SA to play a regional role: strategic, because instability can spread and draw in outside powers acting in their own interests; economic, because a peaceful, prosperous region would be a profitable market for our manufacturing economy. In 2016, exports to DRC amounted to R24bn, underpinning 160,000 jobs and generating R6.6bn in taxes. A collapsed DRC will offer no market; a stable DRC a vastly expanded one.

But if we want to be a regional power we need to have the military capability to act effectively in the region in concert with our neighbours. Attempting to do so with inadequate, and inadequately equipped and supported, forces is not the way to do that. That courts failure and casualties.

M23 IS ALSO BETTER EQUIPPED THAN MOST GUERRILLAS. IT IS A FORCE TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY

THE SADC MISSION LACKS THE REQUIRED STRENGTH AND CAPABILITIES AND HAS, AT BEST, MINIMAL CHANCE OF SUCCESS