Maravi

(HERALD) Need for common Sadc defence policy

Need for common Sadc defence policy

SADC countries still spend far too high a percentage of their national budgets on defence, a legacy of the liberation struggles so many in Southern Africa had to fight and the destabilisation, foreign interference and banditry that far too often followed. Although, for the first time in decades, there is no war in Southern Africa at the moment, regional history still suggests the wisdom of maintaining respectable defence forces to deter those who want to start something violent.

In a sense, defence expenditure is like buying an insurance policy. You hope your car never crashes, nor that your house burns down, but you take precautions, paying out what is required, so you can survive if the worse comes to the worst.

With colonialism and settler rule eliminated by the mid-1990s, and regional integration growing, many felt that defence expenditure could then drop fast. But a couple of years later there came the Rwandan massacres and the invasions of the Democratic Republic of Congo on the border of Sadc, and several Sadc countries had to commit significant numbers of troops, including Zimbabwe.

But, in a sense, those over-optimistic analysts of the mid-1990s had a point, that collective self-defence could reduce the total defence bill for the region.

This does require more regional integration than existed then and the growth of a regional identity and a regional commitment. Such an identity and such a commitment is growing.

Joint exercises have been held. Senior Sadc officers have familiarised themselves with each other’s command and control elements so they can work together in an emergency.

Last year a major step forward was taken with the establishment of the Sadc Brigade, a multinational force that could be deployed anywhere in the region. And last week another step was taken with the completion of a regional training course in Zimbabwe for support staff for this brigade, a critical element frequently missed by civilians who forget that fighting troops need, in modern times, quite complex logistical chains if they are going to be effective. In fact, the support chain usually absorbs far more manpower than the fighting troops.

We hope that this brigade is just a first step towards an eventual integrated regional defence force that can be deployed anywhere in Sadc to face an external threat or internal banditry.

But before that can happen there is a need for all Sadc countries to have a common defence policy.

This would almost certainly mean no one country can have a defence alliance with a power from outside the region; it would have to be all or none. We would hope that Southern Africa will not get entangled with alliances, especially alliances from outside the African continent.

The matter has to be addressed quickly with the United States now getting interested in having treaties with selected countries.

That US interference requires an acceleration in the process of building a regional defence treaty as powerful as the Warsaw Pact and Nato both had in the cruel days of the Cold War making unilateral alliances an impossibility.

Sadc would also require an integrated regional command, common weapons systems, a common command and training doctrine, and preferably enough industrial infrastructure to at least manufacture basic ammunition so that the region could not be held to ransom in even the short term. All this is possible if the political will exists. The pay-off is significant: greatly enhanced security at a much lower cost.

Labels: ARMED FORCES, SADC

posted by MrK @ 6:41 PM