The ‘Transformation’ of the South African Military

Abstract

SouthernAfrica has been at war since the 1960s. Following the capitulation of Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front and the acceptance of majority rule in Zimbabwe in 1980, the widely acknowledged root of most of the regional conflict has been South Africa. In defendingapartheid, the régime in Pretoria engaged in a systematic campaign of destabilisation designed to bring its neighbours to heel. Military invasions, raids, sabotage, support of dissident groups, and assassinations were all part of the National Party (NP) Government's ‘total strategy’ that employed violence as a key element in its regional policy to achieve economic, military, and political hegemony. P. W. Botha during his tenure as Prime Minister and President, 1978–89, ‘politically modified the role’ of the South African Defence Force (SADF), as explained by Herbert Howe, and ‘created the military-dominated State Security Council, which effectively replaced the Cabinet and became the centre of national decision-making and official power in the 1980s’.1The result was the militarisation of South African society and a swath of destruction across the southern part of the continent.