JCH 2012 Volume 37 Issue 2

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Browsing JCH 2012 Volume 37 Issue 2 by Subject "Border War"

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    Suid Afrika se strategiesie posisie en die "Slag van Cuito Canavale", 1987-1988
    (Faculty of Humanities, University ot the Free State, 2012) Scholtz, Leopold
    The purpose of this article is a critique of the strategic approach to the so-called Battle of Cuito Cuanavale by the leadership of the South African Defence Force (SADF). The article starts with an analysis of South Africa’s strategic position on the eve of the campaign in 1987. It concludes that the country was internationally isolated, and that it would have to fight basically alone against FAPLA (the Angolan Army), PLAN (Swapo’s army), and possibly also the Cuban forces in Angola – in other words, an overwhelming force. At the same time, the white South Africans viewed the war as an existential struggle which they could not afford to lose. Against the above-mentioned background, the thinking in SADF circles is then analysed. It is shown that leading SADF military thinkers were of the opinion that any campaign would have to be well thought through and concluded quickly, before international pressure became unbearable. Against a much stronger enemy, it was also thought that a brutal head-on clash would be unwise, and that South African forces would have to follow Sir Basil Liddell Hart’s “indirect approach”. The article subsequently analyses the haphazard way in which the SADF became sucked into the campaign. In the beginning, no clear political objective existed, the South Africans became involved incrementally, they naïvely tried to keep their involvement secret, and threw their indirect approach convictions overboard and opted for exactly the brutal frontal attacks against which their leading thinkers previously warned. The final conclusion is that, although the SADF fared extremely well on a tactical and operational level, their strategic handling of the campaign was not good.
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    ItemOpen Access
    Suid-Afrika se strategiese posisie en die "Slag van Cuito Cuanavale", 1987-1988
    (Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State, 2012) Scholtz, Leopold
    The purpose of this article is a critique of the strategic approach to the so-called Battle of Cuito Cuanavale by the leadership of the South African Defence Force (SADF). The article starts with an analysis of South Africa’s strategic position on the eve of the campaign in 1987. It concludes that the country was internationally isolated, and that it would have to fight basically alone against FAPLA (the Angolan Army), PLAN (Swapo’s army), and possibly also the Cuban forces in Angola – in other words, an overwhelming force. At the same time, the white South Africans viewed the war as an existential struggle which they could not afford to lose. Against the above-mentioned background, the thinking in SADF circles is then analysed. It is shown that leading SADF military thinkers were of the opinion that any campaign would have to be well thought through and concluded quickly, before international pressure became unbearable. Against a much stronger enemy, it was also thought that a brutal head-on clash would be unwise, and that South African forces would have to follow Sir Basil Liddell Hart’s “indirect approach”. The article subsequently analyses the haphazard way in which the SADF became sucked into the campaign. In the beginning, no clear political objective existed, the South Africans became involved incrementally, they naïvely tried to keep their involvement secret, and threw their indirect approach convictions overboard and opted for exactly the brutal frontal attacks against which their leading thinkers previously warned. The final conclusion is that, although the SADF fared extremely well on a tactical and operational level, their strategic handling of the campaign was not good.
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    ItemOpen Access
    The willing and the not so willing: conscription and resistance to compulsory military service in South Africa, 1968-1989
    (Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State, 2012) Du Plessis, Tienie; Van der Westhuizen, Gert; Liebenberg, Ian;
    South Africa participated in two world wars without implementing compulsory military service. Following the Second World War, the Union Defence Force relied on the Active Citizen Force to supplement its manpower needs. Leaders of the ruling National Party, influenced by the Cold War psychosis, myopically believed that global conflict was defined by two ideologies in a deadly struggle for dominance, nationalism and communism. Apartheid advocates made a distinction between the white “us” and the black “them”; Christianity against barbarism; Marxism-Leninism against Christian- Nationalism. Maintaining Nationalist rule increasingly demanded manpower. Conscription for white men was a reality for twenty years, supplying conscripts for border duty and later for suppressing internal unrest. More than 500 000 served in the military, many of them in northern Namibia, Angola and South African townships. War resisters were monitored, ostracised, ridiculed, forced to emigrate or jailed. This contribution shares some thoughts on the issue, including moral objections to apartheid violence and the militarisation of South African society.
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    ItemOpen Access
    The willing and the not so willing: conscription and resistance to compulsory military service in South Africa, 1968-1989
    (Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State, 2012) Du Plessis, Tienie; Van der Westhuizen, Gert; Liebenberg, Ian
    South Africa participated in two world wars without implementing compulsory military service. Following the Second World War, the Union Defence Force relied on the Active Citizen Force to supplement its manpower needs. Leaders of the ruling National Party, influenced by the Cold War psychosis, myopically believed that global conflict was defined by two ideologies in a deadly struggle for dominance, nationalism and communism. Apartheid advocates made a distinction between the white “us” and the black “them”; Christianity against barbarism; Marxism-Leninism against Christian- Nationalism. Maintaining Nationalist rule increasingly demanded manpower. Conscription for white men was a reality for twenty years, supplying conscripts for border duty and later for suppressing internal unrest. More than 500 000 served in the military, many of them in northern Namibia, Angola and South African townships. War resisters were monitored, ostracised, ridiculed, forced to emigrate or jailed. This contribution shares some thoughts on the issue, including moral objections to apartheid violence and the militarisation of South African society.