Imagining total onslaught: South African military threat scenarios and doctrinal change, 1953–1975

ABSTRACT

The Apartheid-era South African military (SADF) underwent dramatic peacetime changes, from a small and underfunded expeditionary element of Commonwealth forces in the 1950s to a regime bulwark with regional capabilities under ‘Total Strategy’ in the mid-1970s. By comparing internal assessments, changes in the SADF’s official view of future wars are traced through security crises of the 1960s and 1970s. Shifting future war perceptions were shaped by the interplay of organizational-political needs during crises of legitimacy for the military. These shifts in future war perception motivated strategic and operational-tactical doctrinal change and shaped the military’s view of security crises.

KEYWORDS:

• South Africa
• threat perception
• military doctrine
• military innovation and change
• intelligence assessment
• Cold War history

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Prof Oren Barak and two anonymous reviewers for their comments. He would also like to thank Cyril J.M. Clarke and Lourens Etchell for their assistance, as well as Prof DFS Fourie, Ms Louise Jooste and Colonel Chris Pheiffer for their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ In the nuclear and regional strategy fields, see for example: Noel Anderson and Mark S. Bell, ‘The Limits of Regional Power: South Africa’s Security Strategy, 1975–1989’, Journal of Strategic Studies, forthcoming, (November 2019) 1–23; Or Rabinowitz, Bargaining on Nuclear Tests: Washington and Its Cold War Deals (Oxford University Press: 2014), 106–136; Mark S. Bell, Nuclear Reactions: How Nuclear-Armed States Behave (Cornell University Press: 2021); Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era (Princeton University Press: 2014) 207–221.In the counterinsurgency field, see for example: Kevin O’Brien, ‘Special Forces for Counter Revolutionary Warfare: The South African Case,’ Small Wars and Insurgencies 12/2 (2001); Kersti Larsdotter, ‘Fighting Transnational Insurgents: The South African Defence Force in Namibia, 1966–1989,’ Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 37/12 (2014) 1024–1038.

² Rob Sinterniklaas, Military Innovation: Cutting the Gordian Knot (Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy: 2018) 20.

³ For a recent review of the rise of apartheid, see: Saul Dubow, Apartheid, 1948–1994 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

⁴ Newell M. Stultz, ‘The Politics of Security: South Africa under Verwoerd, 1961–6’. The Journal of Modern African Studies 7/ 1 (1969) 3–20; Jamie Miller, An African Volk: The Apartheid Regime and its Search for Survival (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

⁵ James Barber and John Barratt, South Africa’s Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security, 1945–1988 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

⁶ Philip H. Frankel, Pretoria’s Praetorians: Civil-Military Relations in South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Annette Seegers, The Military in the Making of Modern South Africa (London: IB Tauris, 1996); James M. Roherty, State Security in South Africa: Civil-Military Relations Under PW Botha (Atmonk: ME Sharpe, 1992); Kenneth W. Grundy, The Militarization of South African Politics (London: IB Tauris, 1986).

⁷ Leopold Scholtz, The SADF in the Border War: 1966–1989 (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2013); Ian van der Waag, A Military History of South Africa (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2015); Kriek van der Merwe, Die Suid-Afrikaanse Leërgevegskool. Ontstaan en Ontwikkeling 1978 tot 1996, (SA Battle School: Postmasburg, 1996).

⁸ Rodney C. Warwick, White South Africa and Defence, 1960–1968: Militarization, Threat Perceptions and Counter-Strategies, (PhD diss.: University of Cape Town, 2009); Jamie Miller, An African Volk.

⁹ Michael Howard, ‘Military Science in an Age of Peace,’ The RUSI Journal 119/1 (March 1974), 4. Talbot C. Imlay and Monica Duffy Toft, eds. The Fog of Peace and War Planning: Military and Strategic Planning Under Uncertainty (Oxford: Routledge, 2007), 4.

¹⁰ Henrik Breitenbauch and André Ken Jakobsson, ‘Defence Planning as Strategic Fact: Introduction’, Defence Studies 18/3 (3 July 2018) 253–61.

¹¹ Eero Vaara, Scott Sonenshein, and David Boje, ‘Narratives as Sources of Stability and Change in Organizations: Approaches and Directions for Future Research’, The Academy of Management Annals 10/1 (2016): 495–560, 496.

¹² RG Boulter, FC Erasmus and the Politics of South African Defence, 1948–1959, (PhD diss. Grahamstown: Rhodes University, 1997), 48 and 61–63.

¹³ Michael Joseph Cohen, Fighting World War Three from the Middle East: Allied Contingency Plans, 1945–1954 (London; Portland, Or.: Frank Cass, 1997), 30–32 and 91–93.

¹⁴ [Pretoria, South African National Defence Force Archives] SANDFA, KG [Commandant-General] Group 5 Box 301, ‘Algemene Verslag: Verdeidigingshoofkwartier Oefening no 6: Oranjie (Verdeidiging)’ G/TRG/3/2, 10 September 1956; Roger S. Boulter, FC Erasmus, 82.

¹⁵ Geoff Berridge, South Africa, the Colonial Powers and ‘African Defence’: The Rise and Fall of the White Entente, 1948–60 (New York: Palgrave, 1992) 7–9; Deon Geldenhuys, The Diplomacy of Isolation: South African Foreign Policy Making (Johannesburg: Springer, 1984) 20; Barber and Barratt, South Africa’s Foreign Policy, 45–46.

¹⁶ SANDFA, KG Group 5 Box 329, ‘Mobilization Planning Paper no. 2,’ AG(3)1610/1/5, 1957; Boulter, FC Erasmus, 83–84.

¹⁷ SANDFA, KG Group 5 Box 329, ‘Notes from a meeting in the KG’s [sic] office,’ KG\GPW\2\2\1, 26 November 1959.

¹⁸ SANDFA, Notes from a meeting in the KG’s office, 26 November 1959; Edward George McGill Alexander, ‘South African Airborne Operations”, Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies 31/1 (2003) 51; Boulter, FC Erasmus, 83.

¹⁹ Van der Waag, A Military History, locs. 3696–3764.

²⁰ SANDFA, KG Group 5 box 301, CoS [Chief of Staff] Army to KG, G\TRG\3\5\1, 25 February 1957.

²¹ SANDFA, KG Group 5 Box 230, ‘Statement to the Senate’, N.D. (1958).

²² Ronald Hyam and Peter Henshaw, The Lion and the Springbok: Britain and South Africa Since the Boer War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 230–233; Cohen, Fighting World War Three, 91–93.

²³ André Wessels, ‘The Anglo-South African Simon’s Town Agreement’, Conference Paper: 2009 King-Hall Naval History Conference, Commonwealth Navies: 100 years of cooperation, in:http://www.navy.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/Du_Toit_-_Simon%27s_Town_Agreement.pdf (accessed June 2017).

²⁴ For an explanation of the evolution of the Government War Book, see SANDFA HSI\AMI Group 3 Box 78 ‘Briefing for Members of the DSC on the Planning of the National Emergency Management System’, HVS/209/23, 19 November 1974. The War Book was apparently based on a British Imperial example that began in the Committee of Imperial Defence before the WWI. See: Hew Strachan, ‘Pre-War Military Planning (Great Britain)’ International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)’, 14/1918. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. Ute Daniel et al. (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2018).

²⁵ George Kruys, ‘Doctrine development in the South African armed forces up to the 1980s’, Selected Military Issues with Specific Reference to the Republic of South Africa, eds. Michael Hough and Louis Du Plessis, (Pretoria: Institute for Strategic Studies, 2001) 10–11.

²⁶ Barber and Barrat, South Africa’s Foreign Policy, 81; [National Intelligence Estimate] ‘The Outlook for the Union of South Africa’, (19 July 1960) 73–60. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Africa, Volume XIV (Washington, DC: State Department, Office of the Historian, 2011). For a detailed chronology of the massacre see Tom Lodge, Sharpeville: An Apartheid Massacre and its Consequences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Ch. 3; Dubow, Apartheid, 75–83; Boulter, FC Erasmus, 86; Mcgill Alexander, ‘South African Airborne Operations’, 51–52.

²⁷ Hyam and Hanshaw, Lion and Springbok, chap. 11 (254–272).

²⁸ Hilton Hamann. Days of the Generals (Cape Town: Zebra, 2001), loc. 341; author’s interview with Maj-Gen. (ret.) Prof. D.F.S. Fourie, November 2015, Faerie Glen.

²⁹ SANDFA KG Group 5 Box 326, Deputy CG (Hiemstra) to CG (Melville), Memorandum: Ons Verdedigingsprobleem”, G/PLANS/11, July 1960.

³⁰ SANDFA MV-B [Minister of Defence – Botha] Group 2 Box 216, Die Unie – Se Militêre Probleme: Waardering deur die Generale Staf, KG/GPW/2/1/3, November 1960, hence ‘1960 Appreciation’.

³¹ Later, Malan would rise to be Chief of the Army (1973–1976) then of the Defence Force (1976–1980), and finally Defence Minister (1980–1991). Magnus Malan, My Life with the SA Defence Force (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2006), 147–148.

³² SANDFA,1960 Appreciation.

³³ Warwick, White South Africa and Defence, 163–170; Stultz, ‘The Politics of Security’, 11–13. Wessel Visser, ‘Afrikaner Anti-Communist History Production in South African Historiography’, History Making and Present Day Politics: The Meaning of Collective Memory in South Africa, ed. Hans-Eric Stolten, (Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 2007), 320–321.

³⁴ Bell, Nuclear Reactions, 88–91.

³⁵ SANDFA, KG Group 5 Box 329, ‘SADF Mobilization Plan no 1\61’, (1961).

³⁶ Peter Paret, French Revolutionary Warfare from Indochina to Algeria: The Analysis of a Political and Military Doctrine, Princeton Studies in International Politics no. 6 (London: Pall Mall Press, 1964) 13–14.

³⁷ SANDFA,1960 appreciation.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Van der Waag, A Military History, loc. 5710.

⁴⁰ SANDFA, 1960 Appreciation.

⁴¹ Alexander, ‘South African Airborne Operations’, 52, SANDFA, Fraser Col[lection] GOC [General Officer Commanding] JCF [Joint Combat Forces] to C Admin [Chief of Staff Administration], ‘Force-in-Being,’ BGG/106/2/11, 24 October 1972.

⁴² SANDFA, HSI\AMI [Chief of Staff Military Intelligence] Group 3 Box 322, ‘Minutes of a Meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee Appointed by CDS [Chief of Defence Staff] to make an appreciation of the threat to the RSA, held in room 161, DHQ on 13 February 1968’, HVS/201/1/1.

⁴³ SANDFA MV-B box 35b, “Notule van Opperbevelevrgadering gehou op 20 en 21 Junie 1968 te Kaapstad, held in the presence of the Defence Minister (Botha), G4/68, hence ‘Supreme Command meeting, 20–21 June 1968’; Van der Waag, A Military History, loc. 6090; Van der Merwe, Die Suid-Afrikaanse Leërgevegskool, 14; Seegers, The Military in the Making of Modern South Africa, 145; Van der Waag, A Military History, loc. 6141; Alon Peled, A Question of Loyalty: Military Manpower Policy in Multiethnic States (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), 33–36.

⁴⁴ SANDFA, Reports Box 8, CDS (R.F. Armstrong), ‘Die Strategiese Waardering, SAW’, DGSS/2/2/1, 9 September 1975.

⁴⁵ Scholtz, The SADF, loc. 1262; Van der Waag, A Military History, locs. 6124–6195.

⁴⁶ This was a moniker by the media, based on the Bureau’s Afrikaans acronym BvS.

⁴⁷ Barber and Barratt. South Africa’s foreign policy, 106; CJ Jacobs, ‘The Forward Defence Strategy of the South African Defence Force 1978–1989’, Border War 1966–1989: A Special Edition of the Journal for Contemporary History, 31/3 (December 2006), 23–41; Scholtz, The SADF, loc. 312; Malan, My Life, 108; Hamann, Days of the Generals, loc. 447.

⁴⁸ SANDFA, ‘Minutes of a meeting of the ad hoc committee appointed by CDS to make an appreciation of the threat to the RSA’ 13 February 1968.

⁴⁹ SANDFA HS OPS Group 1 Box 2, ‘Memo: militêre verdediging van die RSA’, HVS/201/1/1, 5 June 1968; SANDFA BGGM Group 2, CDS (circular), ‘Command and Control of SADF Operations,’ HVS/203/2/2, June 1968.

⁵⁰ SANDFA KG Group 5 Box 301, ‘Defence Headquarters (DHQ) Exercise no. 9, “UNITAS”,’ KG/GPT/2/3 (UNITAS), 18 September 1962.

⁵¹ SANDFA BGGM Group 2 Box 28, GOC JCF to CDS, ‘General Report: Exercise SIBASA,’ BGG/207/6/15, October 1968.

⁵² Warwick, White South Africa and Defence, 187–192; Ribeiro de Meneses and McNamara, ‘The Origins of Exercise ALCORA.’

⁵³ SANDFA KG Group 5 Box 326, D Planning and Operations, ‘The formation of an Africa Army by countries of the Casablanca Group – A paper on the potential threat to our security,’ KG/GPW/2/1/3, 30 April 1962; SANDFA, HSI\AMI Group 3 Box 431, Die Afrika-Leër, KG/INL/154/1, 9 March 1963.

⁵⁴ SANDFA, Fraser Col. GOC 55, ‘Notes by Lt Gen Fraser,’ n.d. (1972).

⁵⁵ SANDFA, H Ops Group 1 Box 3, ‘Waardering – die militêre bedreiging deur die RSA,’, November 1973, hence: ‘1973 appreciation’; Barber and Barratt, South Africa’s Foreign Policy, 131–132; SANDFA Fraser Col. Box 6, JCF intelligence officer to GOC JCF, ‘Southern Africa – Possible Future Developments,’ 31 March 1971.

⁵⁶ SANDFA, ‘Minutes of a meeting of the ad hoc committee appointed by CDS to make an appreciation of the threat to the RSA’ 13 February 1968; Deon Fourie, War potentials of the African states south of the Sahara, (Johannesburg: Jan Smuts House, 1968) 81–82.

⁵⁷ SANDFA, KG Group 5 Box 533, ‘DHQ Ex no. 11 VIRES,’ G\TRC\3\8, 4 December 1963. While India was not named, no other ‘Third World’ country had a carrier, see Warwick, White South Africa and Defence, 185–186.

⁵⁸ Van der Merwe, Die Suid-Afrikaanse Leërgevegskool, 16; 1968 appreciation, SANDFA.

⁵⁹ SANDFA HS OPS Group 1 Box 3, ‘1976 Cabinet Briefing,’ HVS/11/6/2, 19 January 1976; SANDFA, HSI\AMI GROUP 3 Box 322, ‘Assessment of the Air Threat by the Board of Officers for Project SATUN,’ n.d. (1970), enclosed in CDS to DMI, ‘Die Ludgreigment’, HVS/502/7/2/4, 2 November 1970.

⁶⁰ Gen. Magnus Malan, quoted in Warwick, White South Africa and Defence, 277.

⁶¹ SANDFA HSI AMI Group 3 Box 322, also MV-B group 2 box 35b, ‘Notule van Opperbevelvergadering gehou om 0830-Uur op 22 November 1967te VHK’, Pretoria, hence ‘Supreme Command meeting 22 November 1967’, G10/67.

⁶² Supreme Command meeting 22 November 1967, SANDFA; Supreme Command meeting, 20–21 June 1968, SANDFA.

⁶³ 1973 Appreciation, SANDFA.

⁶⁴ SANDFA Fraser Col. Box 13, ‘Opsomming van operasiesplanne,’ KG/GPW/2/1/5, Aug. 1967.

⁶⁵ Ellis, External Mission, loc. 1197; SANDFA, Fraser Col. Box 13, GOC JCF (Fraser) to CoS (Ghey van Pittius), also copied to service chiefs, memo ‘Preparations for operations’, 4 January 1968; Kenneth W. Grundy, Confrontation and Accommodation in Southern Africa: The Limits of Independence, (University of California Press: 1973) 209–210; Filipe Ribeiro De Meneses and Robert McNamara, The White Redoubt, the Great Powers and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1960–1980, (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2017) 118; SANDFA Fraser Col. box 12, Secretary of Justice (Pelser) to CG SADF (Grobbelaar), 1/481/12/2, ‘aansoek om regsadvies,’ Apr. 1969.

⁶⁶ SANDFA, BGGM Group 2 box 18, C Army to GOC JCF and Com[mandant] Staff College, ‘The land battle against a superior enemy,’ G/TRG/1/0, 27 July 1967.

⁶⁷ Roel Martin van der Velde, ‘French-South African Arms Trade Relations as a Community of Practice, 1955–1979’ (Ph.D. Diss., University of Portsmouth, 2017), 91–93; Malan, My life, 42–44. Generals Fraser and Malan did not witness the fighting in Malaya and Algeria in person, in contrast to claims summarized in Richard Dale, The Namibian War of Independence, 1966–1989: Diplomatic, Economic and Military Campaigns (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2014), loc. 2788.

⁶⁸ Fraser, ‘Revolutionary Warfare: Basic Principles of Counterinsurgency’ (Pretoria: Private press, 1965). The author is indebted to Professor DFS Fourie for obtaining a copy of the pamphlet.

⁶⁹ Later, Fraser also began referring to Frank Kitson and John J. ‘Jack’ McCuen in his writings on counterinsurgency, including them in a ‘recommended compulsory (sic) reading list.’ SANDFA Fraser Col. Box 1, Brig. WNA Barends (CoS JCF) to all officers, ‘recommended compulsory reading,’ BGG/410/1/1, July 1971; SANDFA, Fraser Col. Box 6, ‘Address by Lt Gen C.A. Fraser, SM to the symposium of the “Sentrum vir Internasionale Politiek” at Potchefstroom University on Friday 23 August 1968.’

⁷⁰ SANDFA Fraser Col. Box 3, ‘Inquiry into the security structure of the RSA [Potgieter Commission], evidence by Lt Genl C.A. Fraser …,’ n.d. (before 15 September 1972).

⁷¹ Scholtz, the SADF, locs. 650–750; Jannie Geldenhuys, At the Front: A General’s Account of South Africa’s Border War (Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball, 2009), loc. 1999.

⁷² Warwick, White South Africa and Defence, 279–280; Geldenhuys, At the Front, loc. 1965.

⁷³ SANDFA, KG Group 5 Box 533, Fraser to Army CoS, ‘Report on exercise “PANDORA,”’ G\TRG\3\5, 30 November 1965.

⁷⁴ Annette Seegers, ‘South Africa’s National Security Management System, 1972–90,’ The Journal of Modern African Studies 29, no. 2 (1991); Frankel, Pretoria’s Praetorians, 105.

⁷⁵ Miller, An African Volk, 109–111; SANDFA, Fraser Col. Box 1, Major DFS Fourie to Genl Fraser, ‘re: seminar on strategy,’ 27 July 1970.

⁷⁶ Frankel, Pretoria’s Praetorians, 150–151.

⁷⁷ These officers included Ronald de Vries, Ray Holtzhausen, G.P. Kruys, Bill Sass and others. See Ronald de Vries, Eye of the Firestorm: The Namibian-Angolan- South African Border War Memoirs of a Military Commander (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2016), loc. 838.

⁷⁸ Kruys, ‘Doctrine Development’, 10–11; de Vries, Eye of the Firestorm, locs. 831–861.

⁷⁹ SANDFA H Leër [Chief of the Army] Group 4 Box 439, Brig Van Deventer to SAA staff, ‘Notule no 4/69 van ‘n raad van offisiere gehou by die SA Leerkollege’, G/TRG/6/0, 4 August 1969; Ronald de Vries, Eye of the Firestorm, loc. 2424.

⁸⁰ SANDFA, ‘The land battle against a superior enemy’, 27 July 1967.

⁸¹ SANDFA H Leër Group 4 Box 159, C Army to staff, ‘Conduct of Conventional Warfare by RSA Forces: Symposium’, G/TRG/1/0,8 August 1968; Kruys, ‘Doctrine development,’ 14.

⁸² Ronald de Vries et al., RATEL: The Making of a Legend, Volume 1: Origins, 2 vols (Pretoria: The Ratel Book Team, 2020) 66–71.

⁸³ Kruys, ‘Doctrine Development’, 10–11; van der Merwe, Die Suid-Afrikaanse Leërgevegskool, 18–20, 28; Roland ee Vries, ‘The influence of the Ratel infantry fighting vehicle on mobile warfare in southern Africa,’ Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies 43/2 (2015) 177.

⁸⁴ SANDFA C Army Group 13, Infantry School to C Army, ‘Proposed Detailed Organization Mechanized Battalions for Mobile Operations’, G/OPS/2/7, 14 January 1971; Kruys,’Doctrine Development’, 12.

⁸⁵ Scholtz, The SADF, loc. 967; van der Merwe, Die Suid-Afrikaanse Leërgevegskool, 15–16.

⁸⁶ Supreme Command meeting, 20–21 June 1968, SANDFA; Sasha Polakow-Suransky, The Unspoken Alliance, 65–67; Grundy, Confrontation and accommodation in Southern Africa, 208; Scholtz, The SADF, loc. 1004; De Vries, Eye of the Firestorm, 1031.

⁸⁷ R. Warwick, ‘Operation Savannah: A Measure of SADF Decline, Resourcefulness and Modernisation’, Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies 40/3 (1 January 2012) 354–397, 366–367; de Vries, Eye of the Firestorm, loc. 1090–1106; Kruys, Doctrine Development, 15–16.

⁸⁸ 1973 appreciation, SANDFA, White Paper on Defence and Armaments Production, 1973 (Pretoria: 1973).

⁸⁹ SANDFA, Fraser Col. Box 12, ‘Record of an Alcora Meeting’, BGG/107/5/1, 7 August 1970.

⁹⁰ SANDFA Fraser col., Box 6, CDS (W. van der Riet) to CG (Biermann), ‘Memorandum – Supreme Command Appreciation: State of the Threat’, HVS 201/1/1, 21 June 1972.

⁹¹ SANDFA Fraser Col., Box 6, Lecture notes by C.A. Fraser, (probably 1972); Scholtz, The SADF, loc. 300; SANDFA H Ops Group 1 Box 3, ‘Voordrag deur Hoof van die SAW aan die Kabinet oor die Militere Bedreiging Teen die Blankbeheerde State in Suider-Afrika in die Volgende 5 Jaar’, Drafted 23 November 1973and revised 2 January 1974 hence ‘Presentation by the Chief of the SADF to the Cabinet’.

⁹² Miller, An African Volk, 102–103; SANDFA, MV-B group 2 box 146, BvS, Nasionale inlingtingswaardering, vol. 1: samevatting, 3 December 1973.

⁹³ Brian Pottinger. The Imperial Presidency: PW Botha, the First 10 Years (Southern Book Publishers: 1988) 5–6.

⁹⁴ Scholtz, The SADF, loc. 1183; Malan, My life, 67.

⁹⁵ Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 214–215.

⁹⁶ SANDFA HSI\AMI [Hoof van Staf Inligting] Group 3 Box 688 ‘The Military Strength of African States’, EVAL/6/4, Aug. 1971; SANDFA, HSI Group 3 Box 380, ‘The Current Military Threat to the RSA and Rhodesia February 1975’, 12 February 1975.

⁹⁷ Presentation by the Chief of the SADF to the Cabinet, revised 2 January 1974 SANDFA.

⁹⁸ 1968 Appreciation, SANDFA; Hermann Giliomee, The Last Afrikaner Leaders: A Supreme Test of Power (University of Virginia Press, 2013)., 134.

⁹⁹ ‘Assessment of the Air Threat by the Board of Officers for Project SATUN’, n.d. (1970), SANDFA; SANDFA HS\OPS Group 1 Box 85, Exercise ALCORA ‘Synopsis of the Intelligence Sub-Committee’s Threat Assessments as at 1 March 1974’, ISC/23.

¹⁰⁰ Presentation by the Chief of the SADF to the Cabinet, revised 2 January 1974 SANDFA; Notably, former Defence Minister and C SADF Malan referred to the role of nuclear weapons using this exact phrase in his autobiography, see Malan, My life, 214.

¹⁰¹ Gen Viljoen, quoted in Hamann, Days of the Generals, loc 3569; Liberman, ‘The Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb’, International Security 26/2 (2001) 45–86; Verne Harris, Sello Hatang and Peter Liberman, ‘Unveiling South Africa’s Nuclear Past,’ Journal of Southern African Studies 30/3 (2004) 457–476; BB/103/4, A (assistant)/GOC (Col. Ghey van Pittius) to GOC JCF (Fraser), ‘Memo: The Forces Required to Meet Certain Conventional Threats’, (1971–1972); SANDFA Fraser col. Box 2, GOC 9; Sasha Polakow-Suransky, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa (Auckland Park: Vintage, 2010) 82–85.

¹⁰² SANDFA, Presentation by the Chief of the SADF to the Cabinet, revised 2 January 1974.

¹⁰³ van der Merwe, Die Suid-Afrikaanse Leërgevegskool, 28–30.

¹⁰⁴ Jamie Miller, ‘Yes, Minister: Reassessing South Africa’s Intervention in the Angolan Civil War, 1975–1976,’ Journal of Cold War Studies, 15/3 (2013) 4–33,16; Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976 (Univ of North Carolina Press: 2011) 305–307.

¹⁰⁵ Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses and Robert McNamara, ‘Exercise ALCORA: Expansion and Demise, 1971–4’, The International History Review 36/1 (2014) 89–111, 102–103; SANDFA, 1973 Threat Appreciation; Miller, ‘Yes, Minister’, 31–33.

¹⁰⁶ Scholtz, The SADF, loc. 681; Giliomee, The Last Afrikaner Leaders, 127; Hamman, Days of the Generals, locs. 1119–1146.

¹⁰⁷ Malan, My Life, 121–122.

¹⁰⁸ Warwick, ‘Operation Savannah’, 378–380.

¹⁰⁹ Peled, A Question of Loyalty, 233–249; Jan Breytenbach, The Tempered Sword: Forged in Battle Revisited; Operation ‘Savannah’ and the Birth of 32 Bn., (Sandton: Bushwarrior, 2011), locs. 9340–9380; Kenneth W. Grundy, Soldiers Without Politics: Blacks in the South African Armed Forces (University of California Press, 1983), 104–106.

¹¹⁰ SANDFA, HS Ops Group 1 Box 3, Kabinetvoorligtig – 19 Januraie 1976, HVS 11/6/2.

¹¹¹ SANDFA, JF Huyser Col., Box 4, ‘SADF Basic Doctrine’, HS OPS/305/1/B, 1978.

¹¹² SANDFA, JF Huyser collection, Box 4, ‘Doctrine: Conventional War’ (first draft), HS OPS/305/1, 21 November 1977.

¹¹³ Walter R. Fisher, ‘Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument’, Communications Monographs 51/1 (1984) 8.

¹¹⁴ Miller, An African Volk, 117.

¹¹⁵ “Minutes of a Meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee’, 13 February 1968, SANDFA; Ken Flower, Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record. Rhodesia into Zimbabwe 1964 to 1981 (London: John Murray, 1987) 140–141.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this paper was supported by a grant from the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations.

Notes on contributors

Alon Posner

Dr Alon Posner is an independent scholar. His doctoral dissertation, ‘Imagined Wars: What do Armies Think about When They Think of Future War’ was written in the Hebrew University under the supervision of Prof Oren Barak.