Saving Money without reducing function

This is the sixth in this weekly series ideas aimed at helping South Africa solve our major problems

What?

The government should radically reduce the size of the defence force.

Why?

1)              We are on the brink of bankruptcy and must make cuts.

2)              We now have 71000 permanent force members of the defence force plus an additional 10000 civilian employees. Of which approx. 50000 are infantry. At a tooth to tail ratio of 4 to 1, this means that we should be able to put into the field at least 10000 fully equipped and supported infantry soldiers. We recently sent around 3000 soldiers to the DRC as part of a peacekeeping force. We had to charter planes to send them in, had no air support for them, had insufficient arms of all kinds (they apparently even bought their own tents!!). When attacked by M23 rebels we rapidly took casualties, were surrounded, stopped fighting and had to depend on the rebels for food. We therefore do not actually have a defence force of 71000. We are employing that many people but cannot equip even a fraction of them. So why pretend. We must stop lying to ourselves.

3)              The “ideal” ratio of defence spending is 40/20/20. 40% on salaries, 20 % on operational costs and 20% on capital expenditure. We are now spending 68% on salaries which explains why we cannot afford for pilots to fly our aircraft or mechanics to fix them and cannot afford to buy new equipment. Our defence budget is about R56b. if we do not cut manpower, we will need to increase this to at least R95b to be able to use that manpower effectively. This is not taking into account the accumulated deficits in equipment and maintenance (for example our defence radar system and the radars used to assist aircraft to land safely are unserviceable). Clearly this is not possible given our constrained budget and competing fiscal requirements. So, we must cut manpower.

4)              The average age of our military is 43 compared to 28 for the US and 32 for the UK. This supports the idea that we have too few fighting soldiers and too much head office.

5)              During the apartheid era the SADF was fighting the border war and had around 83000 men. Over 50 000 of these were young (and cheap) national service conscripts. We are now at peace – why do we still need such a big defence force?

6)              It will be far more effective to have a much fewer but properly equipped and supported soldiers.

7)              We have no threats on our borders. Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique and Lesotho are friendly countries.

8)              If that situation did change, they will not rapidly become a sizable threat and we will have time to grow our defence force.

9)              If a major power were to attack us – no matter what we spend on defence, we would not prevail.

10)   We cannot afford the ostentation of sending troops to try and affect outcomes of wars far away from us (i.e. SADEC missions). People are starving at home.

11)   Troops should never be used for civil unrest, border patrol, antipoaching or shore patrol. These are all properly police actions about which more in later blogs. Soldiers are trained to kill, not arrest and do not know what is illegal and what is not – it is not their job.

How?

The headcount – especially amongst the top structure (where we seem to have too high a proportion of general officers) will need to be stepwise reduced with the target of achieving a more fit for purpose force.

Realistically, the most likely use of land forces for us will be small scale anti -terrorism operations. A fighting soldier force of 4000 with a high proportion of these trained as special forces capable of small unit operations should be adequate if properly armed and supported. All should be capable of drone operations and tactics. This would imply an infantry of a maximum of 20000 including support.

Our air force need not have any fighter aircraft (we have none which are able to fight in any event). We possibly need a few Rooivalk type attack helicopters to support infantry (though drones may be more effective) and transport helicopters and aircraft capable of delivering troops where they are needed. These are also useful in times of natural disasters. There is absolutely no sense in having aircraft we cannot afford to maintain and fly training missions constantly. Our pilots are not getting enough practice. Given that large drones need airfields, some large drones for reconnaissance and with strike capability should be housed in the Airforce. They will be more cost effective than more aircraft. A total Airforce of perhaps 5000 members should be adequate.

In terms of navy – we have no realistic adversary. Our neighbours are not a threat and again any navy we have will be subdued in moments by a major power. At most we need a few motor torpedo type ships to support coast guard vessels protecting our fisheries and preventing smuggling. We need a police - trained coast guard (see policing blog). A total naval headcount of perhaps 3000 should be adequate.

We have dozens of military bases – many now barely used. We should sell or dispose of most of our these (to use for other purposes). Lohatla at 1580 sq km is one of the largest in the world and is surely unnecessary. As it sits atop the maremane geological dome, it is very likely to contain extremely valuable manganese resources and could potentially fund a complete refit and update to the smaller defence force (In particular building drone capabilities).

The bases which are in urban areas might usefully be fitted with site and service amenities so that people can build their own low- cost homes close to work opportunities.

Whilst a capable domestic defence force industry is strategically important, Denel is probably beyond rescue and we cannot afford the massive amount of money required from the budget to do so. We should, however, look to our private our private aerospace industry (such as Sling, Savannah, Paramount, ARHLAC, Pyralink, Aerosud, ALS and Aero Graphics) to develop advanced drone technology for our use.

Why not?

1)              A country must always maintain enough defence capability to deter adventurism from potential enemies.

Absolutely, but the point is that what we have is a massive force not capable of even minimal effective fighting. Let us rather have a small, but effective (and cheaper) force.

Referendum

I would vote to halve the defence budget and reduce the defence force personnel by two thirds.

Give a thumbs up if you agree