The scuttlebutt over Iran’s participation in the naval war games that took place off South Africa’s coast — and the cozy cocktail parties — highlights governance failures not only in military discipline and submission to civilian control, but also in national security, diplomacy and constitutional governance. Over six months South African National Defence Force (SANDF) generals produced a hat-trick of military defiance without consequences such as forced retirement, demotion or cashiering. The participation of Iranian vessels in Exercise Will for Peace — despite president and commander-in-chief Cyril Ramaphosa’s instruction that they be observers only, which his defence minister says was “clearly communicated” to all — is the latest incident.
In November at a gala event navy chief vice-admiralMonde Lobesebemoaned military defunding as “unpatriotic”, like attempts to replace the state’s security machinery with private players. And during his August visit to Iran, SANDF chief GenRudzani Maphwanyatook a political turn, talking about how the countries shared common goals and stood for oppressed people worldwide. Maphwanya earned a meeting with Ramaphosa, Lobese a reprimand away from public view.
Both stayed in their jobs, pensions secured — showing that rank-and-file politicisation and defiance pay off. This has underscored South Africa’s hollowed-out constitutional command authority. In today’s fracturing global geopolitics, where the US uses tariffs and military force to try to get its way from Venezuela to Gaza and Greenland, South Africa is cackhanded in its foreign affairs and defence policy choices.
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Its doctrines are based on a national interest that, like the national security policy, resembles more of a laundry list of historical musings and wishes than actionable strategy. It’s unfortunate timing that Iran’s warships were in South African waters as the theocracy’s security forces killed thousands of protesters, according to international human rights groups, during countrywide demonstrations against escalating food prices and economic hardship. But the timing is not the issue; it is that for days, amid deliberate obfuscation, South African officials indicated that China was in charge of invitations and the organisation of Exercise Will for Peace.
In effect, this argument means South Africa surrendered its sovereignty, which, given the country’s obsession with autonomy and national security, is plainly odd. It’s also not true, if the Indian government is to be believed. The exercises were “entirely a South African initiative in which some Brics countries took part”, India’s external affairs ministry said in a statement.
But not India, as it was not a regular Brics activity. Meanwhile, the president has akaffeeklatschwith his national security adviser and the ministers of defence, intelligence and international relations. It remains unclear what, if anything, was done by the national intelligence co-ordinating committee, the statutory entity with direct access to the president.
Or the National Security Council. Posting on X about the Iranian war games saga, African Defence Review director Darren Olivier called on parliament to step up: “The public needs to know exactly who did what when. Just as importantly, and something the presidency has not clarified, [is] why neither the president nor the minister of defence took any action for an entire week while the exercises continued.”
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