The practice of strategy: South African defence in stasis

The article concerns the strategy development processes of the South African Department of Defence in South Africa. It intends to identify the probable causes of the observed failure of the South African National Defence Force to develop appropriate departmental policy and military strategy. Military strategy comprises force development, force employment, force deployment and the coordination of these elements in pursuit of national, grand-strategic objectives. (See Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, Making Twenty-first Century Strategy: An Introduction to Modern National Security Processes and Problems Montgomery, AL: Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, November 2006, 103). Of these four constructs, the article concerns itself only with the first two. The article analyses two complementary approaches to strategy formation: a resource-driven, inside-out model and an interests-driven, outside-in method. The article concludes that the Department is preoccupied with the inside-out method to the lasting detriment of the declared strategic intent of the defence policy.     

Forced displacement and behavioral change: an empirical study of returnee households in the Nuba Mountains

We use a unique data-set gathered during a short-lived interwar period in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan to compare characteristics of the households returning after the conflict with those that stayed in their communities of origin. We found that returning households seemed to face worse economic conditions, particularly in the case of female-headed returnee households. Nevertheless, our results show that returnees tend to perform better on different health indicators. Using a detailed set of variables about hygiene and sanitary habits, we explore the hypothesis that the latter result may be related to changes in attitudes given the distinct experiences during displacement. We show that returnees are indeed more likely to adopt these measures.     

Women combatants and the liberation movements in South Africa

This article examines women's role as combatants in national liberation forces in South Africa. Three categories – guerrilla girls, combative mothers and the in-betweeners – are introduced to underscore the varied ways in which women have participated in combat within the national liberation movements. Factors such as age and one's ability to leave the country affected whether women could participate in combat as ‘guerrilla girls’ or if it limited them to fighting apartheid violence from home, or if there were women who can be defined as having fallen somewhere in between these categories. These categories are used to theorise women's combat roles in the anti-apartheid struggle, thus broadening and challenging the dominant notions of combat that often hide women's contributions in war. In this regard, different periods of struggle, physical location, as well as age, determined the methods of activism available to men and women.     

Walking a tightrope: the International Criminal Court and conflict prevention in Africa

Many African countries gained political independence in the 1960s. This era of independence came with promises and great expectations of economic, political and social development. Fifty years later, it is certain that the promises and expectations of independence have not been easily realised. Perennial violent conflicts have continued to ravage many countries in Africa, causing the catastrophic breakdown of law and order. Therefore, one of the major issues in conflict resolution discourse in Africa is how to develop functional mechanisms for the prevention of violent conflicts. This article examines the capacity of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to act as a mechanism for conflict prevention in Africa. Notwithstanding the doubts and uncertainties associated with the impact of law on conflict transformation, this article argues in the main that the ICC contributes to conflict prevention in Africa by expressing global norms of international law, challenging the culture of impunity in some countries, contributing to general deterrence, speedily intervening in some violent conflicts, and contributing to building some records of atrocities by identifying who did what.     

New directions for African security

African security, particularly conflict-related political violence, is a key concern in international relations. This forum seeks to advance existing research agendas by addressing four key themes: domestic politics and peacekeeping; security sector reform programs; peace enforcement; and the protection of civilians. Each of the articles in this forum makes a case for analyzing African agency when it comes to African security. As a way of introduction, this short article sets out the main debates and concludes by providing further directions for future research.     

The elephant in the room

When United States (US) President Barack Obama announced in 2013 that he would host the first United States-Africa leaders' summit the next year, he was greeted with considerable scepticism. Many critics thought he was just playing catch-up with other countries and organisations which had been holding Africa summits for years, especially China. But, whatever the motives, the event itself proved to be a substantial success, probably re-setting US relations with Africa for many years to come.     

SOUTH AFRICA'S ANTI-TERROR LAW

This article argues that whereas the waves of democratization which enveloped the continent in the early 1990s following the collapse of Eastern European one-party socialism genera ted expectations of a ‘new dawn’ for ‘good governance’ and sustainable human development on the continent, one wave after another appears to have suffered serious setbacks. Indeed, a decade later, some of the most articulate pro-democracy leaders, who came into office on the crest of the democratic waves of the 1990s have sought to manipulate their countries' constitutions in order to perpetuate their presidential tenure. Such undemocratic behaviour will only fuel speculation in the industrialized world that the New Partnership for Africa's Development is just another decorative blue-print drawn up by beleaguered African despots in order to obtain new resource inflows at a time the international community under the hegemonic leadership of the Uni ted States will be wholly preoccupied with rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian roadmap.     

South Africa's threat environment: a guide for the National Planning Commission

Abstract

The mandate of South Africa's recently appointed National Planning Commission includes addressing ‘defence and security matters’. This article seeks to outline the central elements of the threat environment facing South Africa in the foreseeable future. It is argued that South Africa faces no meaningful existential threat from conventional military forces but that its security forces will need to be prepared to address possible raids and attacks by conventional military forces both on home soil and on vital interests beyond the nation's borders. Other threats highlighted include the threats posed by potential insurgencies, by terrorism, and by crime, social unrest and banditry. Also addressed is the danger of so-called hybrid threats, in which two or more of the single threat types outlined here are combined. Finally, the article challenges the National Planning Commission to rethink South Africa's policy on peace operations in the light of the need to ensure the safety and security of the nation's citizenry.     

Regional integration and nuclear energy in Africa

African states are hampered by unreliable electric energy that has not complemented economic development efforts. Recently, several African states announced plans to pursue nuclear energy in the future. However, several challenges remain for these states, notably insecurity and financial deficiencies. This paper proposes the use of regional integration arrangements to address these challenges faced by African states, as a way of complementing other efforts enabling African states to obtain nuclear energy. The existence of these arrangements and their institutional mechanisms can enable African states to enhance security and cost-effectively develop nuclear power infrastructure.     

Demobilisation,disarmament and reintegration in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The numbers game

Abstract

The creation of the Africa Command (AFRICOM) has reflected the growth in the strategic importance of Africa in US foreign policy since the end of the 1990s. One of the objectives of this new geographical military command is to forge closer links between foreign, security and development policies. However, this approach met with a number of difficulties associated with the challenge of ‘inter-agency cooperation’ among rather disparate actors from foreign affairs, defence and development. In addition, the establishment of AFRICOM has met with fierce criticism in the US and elsewhere – especially in Africa – culminating in the charge that the US foreign and development policies in Africa are being militarised. Although AFRICOM has a number of interesting features, this paper shows that it has reacted to these criticisms by realigning itself more closely with the traditional model of a military command, at the expense of the innovative interagency elements.