Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Known for its low-tech forces and unconventional wars, Africa lacks the financial flexibility to employ costly, information-based airpower assets. The authors contend that the supporting roles of airpower are most compatible with the evolving strategic landscape of Southern Africa. Within that region, the fundamental challenge involves keeping airpower in step with defense arrangements and establishing stepping-stones for an airpower culture amidst ongoing integration.

TRADITIONALLY, TWO CLEARLY identifiable precepts shape the use of airpower-technology and conventional war. Without technology, there is no such thing as airpower. Technology was instrumental in the creation and development of airpower and to this day remains one of the primary drivers in its use-to the extent that small, incremental advances in technology can still decisively influence the balance between offence and defence in aerial warfare.1 The love affair between technology and airpower also gives rise to airpower's being a costly instrument of military power. In the post-modern war-fighting environment, leading-edge airpower technology lies beyond the reach of the second- or third-rated powers of the African continent, given the extreme rise in its cost. Even if they are able to purchase these air assets, these lesser powers are not always willing to risk using them.2

Technology shapes the organisational as well as command and control (C2) ethos of air forces in general. High technology requires highly skilled, intelligent, and individually minded personnel for aerial war fighting. The need for highly skilled personnel not only adds to airpower's cost but also gives rise to a very elitist, discriminatory organisational ethos rooted in the ultimate idea of an air ace. In addition, the need for such personnel underpins the intricate relationship between officers responsible for fighting and other ranks who serve as members of the ground crew. In most cases, officers have minimal command authority over other ranks until they reach the level of squadron commander.3 This stands in stark contrast, for example, to the C2 arrangement of armies that are personnel-driven instruments of power and, subsequently, C2 intensive.

The centrality of conventional warfare in airpower comes to the fore when one considers airpower's counterproductivity in unconventional wars.4 Stated differently, the contribution of airpower in unconventional wars is primarily concerned with sustaining and supporting terrestrial operations through strategic and tactical transport capabilities. The use of airpower in "nasty little wars of the weak," typical of African conflicts, is a matter of debate. The counterproductivity of conventional airpower in unconventional operations underpins all the different kinds of air campaigns, including counterair and strategic bombing. The unconventional soldier either does not have any airpower or simply has no interest in getting involved in symmetrical fights for air superiority. Lengthy, low-intensity wars are normally fought in terrain that does not present strategic targets with the enemy's centre of gravity, located in the hearts and minds of the people.

Known for its low-tech forces, Africa lacks the financial flexibility to buy and employ costly, information-based airpower assets and is characterised by unconventional wars. How then should one understand the use of airpower by Southern Africa in general and South Africa in particular?5

South Africa, Africa, and the Utility of Military Force

As long as no vital interests are compromised, preventing wars-rather than fighting them-appeals to most societies the world over. Conflict prevention also came to dominate the South African political agenda towards Africa as its main area of interest and influence. This is a reflection of the extreme political nature of armed conflict as underpinned by the Clausewitzian notion that conflict has its own grammar but not its own logic.6 Consequently, for an understanding of the grammar of airpower as part of South African military involvement in Africa, one must consider the political logic behind South Africa's emphasis on the prevention of conflict.

A number of considerations shape South African political logic towards Africa. South Africa is the regional if not the continental power in terms of its political stature, economic power, and military capability. South Africa, however, follows a cautious approach in dealing with Africa in general and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in particular. The strategic plan of the South African Department of Foreign Affairs clearly spells out the principles that underpin this approach. It includes a commitment to Africa as the focal point, to human rights and democracy, to justice and international law, to peace and international mechanisms for solving conflicts, to multilateralism, and to international economic integration and cooperation.7

South Africa does not configure its approach to dealing with Africa around a traditional realist paradigm with national interests and power as the primary drivers-important as these may be. South Africa's historical, cultural, economic, and political predispositions, nonetheless, do provide some interesting insights about its involvement in Africa. Laurie Nathan, in particular, points out that under Pres. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's foreignpolicy outlook is shaped by three paradigms: democratic, Africanist, and anti-imperialist.8 African solidarity and the assumption that the military is not the primary policy instrument in dealing with Africa's problems are implicit in these paradigms. The example of the negotiated revolution in South Africa serves as the blueprint for the government's pacific or "silent" approach to conflict resolution and peace building on the African continent-an approach leaving little leeway for instruments such as airpower.9

Although the realist perspective cannot adequately explain South Africa's involvement in Africa, it does serve a purpose in bringing the domestic agenda into consideration. That agenda shows a clear understanding of poverty, unemployment, and crime as the most salient political and security challenges confronting South Africa. In the domestic political environment, the South African government has to contend with rising expectations of a conflicting nature-balancing, for example, reconciliation, transformation, and capacity building in state departments with the need for increased delivery of public service. In addition, balancing the budget between domestic and foreign-policy agendas represents, to say the least, a huge challenge for the South African government.

The foreign-policy context confronts the South African National Defence Force with some real challenges in its efforts to support government initiatives on the African continent. The most prominent in this regard is the absence of a coherent security strategy in support of the government's theoretical and political paradigms and visions.10 In addition, the South African military has trouble operationalising the notion of human security as the primary organising concept of governmental security thinking.11 Within South Africa, the idea of human security is firmly rooted in the 1996 white paper on defence as an example of a defence policy based primarily on the ideas of nonoffensive and nonthreatening defence in general and within the region in particular.12

However, the ideas of nonoffensive and nonthreatening defence also brought to the fore some anomalies in South African defence thinking and implementation. How, for example, does one explain the link between the ideas of human security and nonoffensive defence on the one hand and the procurement programme of largely offensive conventional weapon systems on the other? The nature of these weapons also led to some inconsistencies. Primarily, the offensive capability of the Navy and Air Force benefited from the recent arms procurement. Yet, the South African government's agenda for peace on the African continent largely depends upon the availability of infantry-based forces and a need for air and maritime forces that can support these land forces. Or is this simply a testimony of the ability of the Air Force and Navy to mobilise support for their more domestically and defence-oriented roles-or a focus upon deterrence?

The South African military faces some serious challenges in the conduct of peace missions on the African continent. On a political level, South Africa is committed to a multilateral approach. However, one can characterize some of the countries needed to coimplement such an agenda as reluctant partners at best. And one may link this reality to the traditional divide between the doves and hawks in the Southern African political landscape, as illustrated in the impasse of political and other support and enthusiasm for the creation of an African Standby Force.13 On an operational level, African militaries in general and the South African military in particular have to deal with very long lines of communications characterised by a lack of infrastructure wherever military forces are deployed on the African continent. Compare that, for example, to the infrastructure available and the distance over which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation had to deploy in Kosovo.

Airpower rests upon a strong technological imperative, but utilising its conceptual underpinnings brings to the fore much of its value as a policy tool. Emergent concepts act as the guiding intelligence and display a traditional nexus with the technological base of aerial war fighting as it has developed since the early twentieth century. The most spectacular developments and progress in airpower are therefore located in the progress from a mere recreational activity and reconnaissance role to an instrument with strategic potential. This progress came about through both technological development and intellectual endeavours to interface technological systems in order to cover rising military needs and changes in the conduct of war.

Regional arrangements call for countries to have interoperable airpower capabilities. Interoperable airpower evolves alongside politico-economic progress as patterns of amity displace enmity.14 Advancement regarding regional integration thus paves the way for and includes progress on military interoperability.15 Within the integration continuum, airpower has to move alongside the political shift from enmity and threats, unilateral defence, and aggression, to amity, cooperation, and the rejection of force to resolve conflict. Keeping airpower in step with such regional dynamics includes new technologies but relies largely upon norm stretching and intellectual progress.

Norm stretching refers to modifying conventional behaviour dictated by established norms but not breaking or ignoring the set norms.16 Therefore, is airpower in the Southern African region business as usual, or does it call for altered structures, strategies, or operations to satisfy new politico-strategic demands? In any case, this necessitates some adjustments in the SADC of the traditional airpower paradigm. Changes to an established norm result from responsiveness to politico-military threat perceptions and, in addition, to (1) perceived benefits for the organisation, (2) pressures from material or social conditions, and (3) adapting to new demands, whether deemed appropriate or useful or both.17 In essence, variations in threat responsiveness emanate from politico-military threat perceptions by decision makers.18 In addition to norm stretching, hard and soft technologies also play a role.

Material needs and physical systems drive hard technology while soft technology relies on the intellectual constructs of human beings.19 In combination, hard and soft technologies underpin the diffusion and contributions of technological innovations. However, airpower theorists have to contend not only with the technological imperative and the things that air forces traditionally do but also with newly declared politico-strategic demands. In this regard, regional organisations have to resolve complex issues and infuse new rules and norms to deal with, among other matters, the void between technology-driven conventional thinking on airpower and the political preferences and expectations emanating from regions such as the SADC.20

Taking Airpower to the Southern African Region

Dennis Drew noted that the essence of airpower is the ability to apply great power quickly to any target on the planet or, in the case of the SADC, any target in Southern Africa.21 The use of airpower in a particular environment is rooted, Drew argues, in understanding the two key words in the definition, namely quickly and power. Neither land nor maritime power can compete with the reaction speed of airpower, especially in an infrastructure-deprived continent such as Africa, so airpower can make positive contributions in the noncombat and peacekeeping realm, based on its ability to rapidly deliver humanitarian aid such as food, medical supplies, peacekeepers, and diplomats trying to solve or avoid conflict.

The contribution of airpower stems from the swift employment of appropriate types and numbers of air assets for the correct reasons.22 This represents a unique challenge to Southern African air forces, which differ vastly in terms of doctrine and air assets, and which do not exercise together regularly to ensure tactical and operational interoperability. The swift employment of appropriate air assets is rooted in access to timely and accurate strategic and operational intelligence about what airpower should do and tactical intelligence about how airpower should do it.23

Airpower has become so valuable to so many in so many different ways that the demand for it is virtually unlimited.24 In Southern African countries, with their scarce resources and small defence budgets, this simply means that airpower cannot be everything to everybody. It obligates air forces to prioritise their air assets, operations, and structures. However, beyond the military realm, political will remains the most important requirement for the successful employment of airpower. Political will is even more crucial when airpower has to contribute to conflict prevention and peacekeeping. Such contributions originate in political conditions allowing for effective strategic intelligence and early-warning systems, effective cooperation and coordination of political will, and efficient C2 systems that facilitate effective multinational actions. The existence of a common political will in the SADC, however, is questionable because a common culture of bringing regional assets to bear is either absent or effectively disrupted by political bickering.25

Since its inception, and particularly during the twentieth century, airpower made regular detours through the low-intensity-conflict environment. These detours lured both theorists and military practitioners into reconsidering traditional thought on airpower. Several articles attend to shifting the role, or at least accentuating the non-war-fighting roles, of air forces. One striking fact is the absence of literature regarding airpower in the Southern African region.

In part, demands from the low-intensity-conflict environment were (and perhaps still are) viewed as aberrations, so they did not attract much attention from airpower theorists.26 However, since the second half of the twentieth century, an airpower domain dawned that increasingly played out beyond the conventional confines.27 South Africa and most of the countries in the SADC now have to contend with this conventional-unconventional interface of airpower, and political guidance is crucial for its employment. Ideally, policy directs the preparation and employment of the military instrument, and South Africa and the SADC are not exceptions. Multilateralism and cooperation within the SADC and political will direct much of what military decision makers have to adhere to, and this raises or lowers the role of airpower in the region.

Several academics emphasise the difficulty of building and maintaining airpower in Africa. As early as 1968, Ross Baker highlighted the dominance of ground forces in African states as a stumbling block.28 The colonial armies, from which many African armed forces stem, had no significant airpower assets that could instil a lasting airpower culture. Even though later leaders introduced some high-tech airpower systems into new African states, they did not foster a systemic culture to raise and maintain this expensive and complex strategic tool. As a result, small air forces dedicated to transport, disaster control, and patrol functions still characterise many SADC countries. The absence of a historic exposure to and embracement of the true role of airpower bodes ill for a mature airpower culture in the SADC. In the absence of a mature security community with a mature security culture to direct the use of policy instruments, it is perhaps unsurprising that airpower appears immature as well. Bjørn Møller avers that Southern African armed forces are instruments more of internal than foreign policy and that the postapartheid SADC reflects a limited need for national defence.29 Diverse origins of Southern African militaries are important as well, for they stem from colonial, postcolonial, and liberation cultures, none of which portrays any significant airpower profiles. Colonial armies and guerrilla legacies with a strong landward focus seem to dominate, with only South Africa and Angola offering noticeable islands of airpower.30

SADC airpower also falls victim to the reality that in the procurement of equipment, African armed forces often unduly emphasise technology appropriate for conventional warfare. Mismatches develop because relatively low educational and technical standards often do not properly shape the eventual procurement and later employment of sophisticated equipment. This is especially true of technology-driven instruments of power such as air and maritime power. A mismatch between weapon systems and available operators is an obvious consequence. In addition, Herbert Howe pointed out that service-determined instead of joint-coordinated purchases often worked against interoperability, standardisation, and regularity of supply in African militaries-and the SADC is no exception.31 Given the specialised character of airpower, the aforementioned factors give some indication of the SADC dilemma or inherent tension within the SADC.

Airpower in Southern Africa: Some Tensions, Some Progress

Airpower in the SADC hinges upon two questions. Firstly, can airpower, with its technology-based, conventional war-fighting profile, be adjusted to suit the regional security agenda? Secondly, can air defence in the region be "everything for everybody" and satisfy expectations from both the military and political domains? In fact, what is the political requirement, or is it up to airpower theorists and military decision makers to compile this profile? Clear political guidelines are of great use. However, such guidelines are rare and further eroded when they have to be operationalised in a regional context where declaratory statements of intent seem to rule. Bearing in mind the matter of norm stretching, one can formulate a number of alternatives for configuring airpower in the SADC:

* traditional airpower for the SADC, standing as defence against aggression and in support of the Mutual Defence Pact, as well as the African Standby Force of the African Union;32

* traditional airpower providing limited "residual capacity" for nontraditional contributions as located within certain elements of airpower;33

* selection and exploitation of airpower capabilities that have a natural interface with the regional realities and demands and reconfiguration of these capabilities to serve new roles; and (perhaps at the extreme)

* corruption of airpower in order to fulfil nontraditional roles in response to political demands.34

As new demands intrude upon the traditional technological and war-fighting character of airpower, the more important soft technologies can lessen the misapplication of airpower through uncoordinated regional demands.35 Soft technologies are therefore important to shaping airpower without losing critical capacity amidst a culture of apprehension more attuned to continental strategic thought than the air and space domain. One pathway for decision makers is to consider pooled intellectual and operational thought on the role of airpower in the SADC region. Institutionalisation, research and publishing, conferencing, training, schooling, and experimentation promote common thought. In this regard, Thomas Smith points to the planning of air operations to remain within the accepted parameters of civilian casualties and destruction by limiting the lethality of munitions and their means of delivery.36 These efforts are bound both to raise difficult questions and provide some answers regarding a common airpower culture within the region.

Airpower in the SADC also turns upon shared and integrated resources. In addition, airpower rests upon centralisation as the best way to employ air assets in a theatre of operations.37 SADC leaders have to abdicate some sovereignty over the airpower instrument amidst a political culture that prefers a national hold on military resources. Given the early stages of integrating SADC military assets and leaders who do not always share common approaches to security matters, ideas on shared and integrated resources need close attention. In this regard, soft technologies bring about innovative thought, new institutions, and policies to loosen an undue national hold on power.38 SADC decision makers should comprehend that common defence is more important than unilateral efforts and that collective, rather than national, capabilities promote regional security.39 In this regard, the SADC Standby Brigade is very immature but representative of an emergent regional pathway to pledge and validate military resources (including air elements) for future contingencies. These national pledges are already validated as to their tenability if called upon. However, very little is available on the specifics of air elements for the brigade whilst the elements should not be viewed as comprehensive. Airpower elements in the SADC remain very limited.40

The SADC cannot view airpower in isolation from the role of the African Union, whose Peace and Security Council views regional military capabilities as building blocks for continental standby forces. However, moving from national to regional security corresponds with progress towards amity between member states. In parallel, one is bound to also find progress towards military cooperation and eventual interoperability (see figure).41 Although the SADC has some way to go, migration to a mature security community is not simple and raises new demands to which conventional airpower also has to adjust. Subsequently, airpower in the SADC has to remain in line with emergent regional needs, and we should consider some of the following matters:

* Are air forces in the SADC mere army air wings?

* Can a full spectrum of SADC airpower capabilities be maintained?

* How can we temper persistent obsolescence for SADC airpower assets?

* How can we keep equilibrium in the difficult supply, training, and maintenance triad?

* Which systems that fit SADC needs do we have to develop?42

Institutionally the Standing Aviation Committee (SAC) of the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee oversees SADC airpower cooperation. The SAC has two objectives: to promote regional stability through secondary airpower roles and to defend against aggression that leans towards the primary war-fighting role of airpower.43 Inherently, the declared outlook offered by the SAC covers the full spectrum of airpower, albeit somewhat idealistically. However, the SADC, being quite explicit about its preference to avoid war fighting, would rather opt for preventative and other, more constructive roles with humanitarian security as a priority.44 In effect, the normative SADC preference for a more pacifist approach to conflict inadvertently raises the non-war-fighting roles of airpower, and it appears that these more humanitarian roles receive most attention.

Wyn Elder, as well as the SAC of SADC, points to several additional roles that stem from airpower.45 Surprisingly, air superiority through the mature war-fighting profile of airpower is acknowledged to ensure safe airspace over a theatre-a capacity available in the SADC region if one considers the collective regional air capabilities.46 However, unless a conventional conflict erupts, airspace control is more likely to be based on deterrence and ground-to-air systems than on other air assets in the region. Nonetheless, given the capability to maintain an aerial safe haven to offset local opponents, it becomes a question of bringing to fruition the spectrum of nonlethal airpower capabilities within the soft security and humanitarian preferences of SADC leadership.

Airlift in the SADC has to assume both humanitarian and military faces. The cyclones in Mozambique in 2000 and 2007 once again accentuated the necessity to have sufficient airlift to serve humanitarian security needs.47 Airlift contributes towards overcoming long distances amidst infrastructural voids, avoiding threatening groups, and securing lines of communications.48 If hostile groups deny access and mobility and thus threaten vulnerable societies, airlift offers alternative pathways to counter or overcome such threats and vulnerabilities. Air mobility is of crucial importance in a conflict domain without frontiers requiring infantry-styled forces to act as preventative and even fighting forces on short notice. Potential and current theatres of operations in the SADC, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, require an operational airlift capability to serve both the military and humanitarian agendas of decision makers. If pooled, civilian and military airlift assets of SADC countries (such as the South African A-400 Airbus orders) can contribute to both the humanitarian and military facets of Southern African security.49

The SADC's emphasis upon early warning and prevention rather than intervention highlights the importance of reconnaissance.50 Although traditional airborne reconnaissance is underdeveloped, new developments entail new outlooks. Unmanned technologies now feature prominently but seem underutilised in the SADC region, with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) available but perhaps blocked more by political apprehension than by technological limitations.51 Nonetheless, UAV possibilities are extensive since their sophistication offers multiple alternatives in a highly unstructured and unpredictable SADC strategic environment.52 In practice, UAVs offer opportunities in the air, land, and maritime domains, with a low intrusive profile amidst the political sensitivities and sovereignty preferences.53 Reconnaissance and the unmanned option serve several agendas: a pathway towards much professed early warning, less exposure to harm, and, eventually, low political and financial costs. The explicit emphasis upon prevention and human security accentuates the benefits that UAVs offer for surveillance and reconnaissance. The overview of SADC air capabilities shows a limited reconnaissance capability that the introduction of UAV capabilities can significantly augment.54

Communications are important between diverse SADC actors spread across a large geographic region. Although satellite communications are available, fixed- and rotary-wing communications platforms within the SADC airpower environment feature as well.55 Military contingents operating amidst diversity require good tactical and operational communications as well as peace operations to stem internal conflicts that challenge decision makers. Elder points out three communications difficulties: interoperability due to equipment diversity brought into the theatre, ad hoc communications arrangements to overcome the lack of permanent facilities, and the need to deal with deliberate disruption of the means of communications.56 Airpower can mitigate these difficulties. Locating communications in the airpower domain also confers a sense of autonomy and protection against host interference and opposing parties. An air and space communications regime provides robustness in theatres known for their complexity and diversity.

Nonlethality and limited destruction form part of a growing line of thought that ties in closely with the SADC's emphasis on human security. Making use of both technological artefacts and intellectual skills promotes nonlethality. Beyond the combat roles of airpower, supportive roles such as transport, communications, reconnaissance, and search and rescue offer nonlethal contributions. A range of nonlethal munitions is also becoming available.57 In addition, new rules have to be absorbed, especially in the war-fighting role. Although certain roles are inherently nonlethal, intellectual endeavours of laws, tactics, and technical arrangements temper the war-fighting roles.58 In the SADC, international law and human security remain central tenets, and these tie in with the international best practice of keeping the growing role of airpower within international legal limits.

Speed is a factor closely associated with the airpower option; however, Steven Metz notes that speed is no longer only about the tactical and operational levels but about organisational and conceptual adaptation in the shortest possible time to deal with new insecurities and warfare forms through airpower.59 Organisational change also has to keep pace with new strategic needs. The soft-technology triad of innovation, concepts, and diffusion, together with acceptance or rejection of new systems and capabilities, produces new understandings about how to deal with new insecurities. Speed on and beyond the battlefield underpins the successful application of airpower. Mastering speed through organisational and conceptual adaptation to fit the regional need is perhaps the single most important factor faced by airpower in the SADC realm. If the SADC is the eminent security arrangement with a military component, airpower needs to be adjusted quickly and appropriately.

Precision and airpower have become synonymous. Precision, however, requires an understanding of physical and psychological precision.60 If we adapt Metz's ideas, this implies that airpower in the SADC needs adjustment to reflect a SADC strategic culture, a certain level of technological development, and threat perceptions. These aforementioned matters involve much more than physical precision and its technological basis. Elder further emphasises psychological operations through airpower and its successes in peace operations, but understanding their success depends even more upon the psychological precision referred to by Metz.61 Airpower in the SADC needs to satisfy the almost diffuse threat perceptions of the regional leadership and, in conjunction, promote human security and destroy aggressors when required.

Airpower is also characterised by adaptation to technological shifts-a crucial domain for soft and hard technologies to interact and for norm stretching to cover the rising need for uniquely styled airpower in the region. The choice lies between maintaining traditional roles and thus limiting airpower, and stretching airpower to cover new regional demands. In the SADC, nonmilitary policy instruments are partially successful and leave room for airpower assets.62 If decision makers merely embrace new technological shifts, so-called second- and third-order effects in the political, ethical, and legal domains arise. One should therefore always consider decisions to employ new technologies against this backdrop. One example is whether precision bombing is in fact more humane if encased in legal stipulations. Another is whether sophisticated surveillance interferes with individual rights to privacy or whether the use of UAVs intrudes upon sovereignty. Decision makers and experts have to accentuate the softer contributions of airpower assets. It is easy to become enchanted by the technological war-fighting profile of airpower, but this very profile hardly contributes to the SADC's security agenda.

The privatisation of even traditional military functions is a growth industry, and airpower cannot escape this encroachment. To what extent therefore can airpower roles be outsourced to the private sector?63 The last option is to outsource the primary war-fighting role. However, privatisation also forms part of the air threat to the region through private and even rogue means. Merely buying air assets (including the aircrews) is possible. Less than a decade ago, Ethiopia rapidly purchased new aircraft and aircrews in its war with Eritrea, while Angola used hired pilots to fight the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) guerrilla group.64 Augmenting airpower through private means is quite conceivable and can rapidly change the airpower balance within the region. However, privatisation is a solution for some difficult endeavours but an obstacle when moving closer to the conventional airpower domain. The SADC should consider public-private symbioses to augment its secondary and more humanitarian and constructive contributions, as well as the new offering from outer space. Some airpower roles such as airlift, communications, and reconnaissance therefore offer opportunities for private partnerships, but there is a limit.

Conclusions

Tensions in airpower brought about by modern developments in both technological and strategic affairs formed the central focus of this article. Traditional airpower thought, well developed and both conceptually and technologically diffused, lies at the heart of modern military campaigns. However, the inherent optimism about airpower is not universal, and airpower theory culminating in spectacular battlefield success has a less spectacular side. Hence, airpower in unconventionally styled conflicts in Africa, and the SADC region in particular, draws attention to ideas of high-tech airpower's not being an instrument for all scenarios.

In the aftermath of the Cold War, militaries had to transform themselves in one of two ways. They could "go high tech" to capitalise on the worldwide growth in information and communications technology in order to improve the conventional fighting instrument of states, or "go low tech" to improve their capability to deal with multiple threats emanating from the low-intensity intrastate environment through counterinsurgency and peacekeeping capabilities. Airpower did not escape the dilemma of being competent at both levels, and neither did the airpower debate in the SADC. As a benevolent hegemonic power in the SADC, even South Africa is not sure whether it has the ability, luxury, and political latitude to do both. Inherently, few if any countries in the SADC have a strategic culture that steers them towards airpower in the first instance, and one must also understand that embracing high-tech airpower would actually offer diminishing rewards for the region. The SADC is not a mature security community and therefore has to cope with difficulties as leaders slowly cultivate fertile conditions for politico-military integration.

The supporting roles of airpower offer more compatibility with and utility for the evolving strategic landscape of the SADC region and require close political and military attention. The fundamental challenge is to keep airpower in step with regional defence arrangements and establish stepping-stones for a regional airpower culture amidst regional integration. Whilst it is difficult to dispute the niche role that airpower can play in the SADC, the political leadership is the primary agent to move from a declaratory to an operational airpower in the region. Airlift, communications, reconnaissance, speed, and reach, as well as privatisation, now compete with traditional preferences for the priority of aerial combat and ground attack. Stretching airpower concepts to address the tensions between conventional and unconventional strategic landscapes and using soft technologies to embed more constructive aerial roles are now more relevant to maintaining security within the SADC than ever before.

40. Senior South African National Defence Force official, telephonic interview by the authors, 10 December 2007.

41. Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda far International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991), 218.

42. Mike Hough, "The Challenge of Effective Air Power in Sub-Saharan Africa," in Protecting Sub-Saharan Africa: The Military Challenge, ed. Louis du Plessis and Mike Hough (Pretoria, Republic of South Africa: HSRC Publishers, 1999), 124-25.

43. Ibid., 136.

44. Maxi Schoeman, "Developing an Integrated Approach to Human Security," in From Warfare to Welfare: Human Security in a Southern African Context, ed. Mari Muller and Bas de Gaay Fortman (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 2004), 71.

45. Maj R. Wyn Elder, "The Role of Non-Lethal Airpower in Future Peace Operations: 'Beyond Bombs on Target,'" research report (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Command and Staff College, 2003), https://research.au.af.mil/papers/ay2003/acsc/03-1413.pdf. See also decisions by the SAC during the Botswana meeting on secondary roles in "Aviation Response Most Effective," Daily News (Republic of Botswana), 15 June 2007, http://www.gov.bw/cgi-bin/news.cgi?d=20070615&i=Aviation_response_most_effective (accessed 30 September 2007).

46. See the chapter by African Strategic Alternatives titled "An Audit of Southern African Development Community Defence Policies" in Solomon, Towards a Common Defence and security Policy, 85, 125.

47. M-Net TV South Africa, Carte Blanche, documentary on the floods in northern Mozambique (Cyclone Fabius), 10 March 2007.

48. Ian van Vuuren, "The Changing Nature of Warfare: Implications for Africa," African Security Review 7, no. 1 (1998), http://www.iss.co.za/ASR/7Nol/VanVuuren.html (accessed 2 October 2007).

49. "South Africa Facing Transition Problems in Air Transport Budget," Defence Industry Daily, 18 August 2005, http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/south-africa-facing-transition-problems-in-air-transport-budget-01039 (accessed 2 October 2007).

50. See the emphasis on early warning in the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, Southern African Development Community, 26, http://www.sadc.int/english/documents/sipo/sipo_en.pdf (accessed 17 July 2007).

51. LTC Lim Kok Siong, CPT Stanley Chua Hon Kiat, and CPT Teh Hua Fung, "Airpower in Non-Conventional Operations," Pointer: Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces 30, no. 3 (2004), http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/ publications/pointer/journals/2004/v30n3/features/feature4.html (accessed 22 July 2008); and Brig Gen John Wesley, South African Air Force, retired, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, electronic interview by the authors, 28 and 29 March 2007.

52. See Elder, "Role of Non-Lethal Airpower," 15-16, for new remotely piloted vehicle and UAV systems and capabilities entering the surveillance domain.

53. Nathan, "SADC's Uncommon Approach," 614.

54. See the analysis in "Audit of Southern African Development Community"; LTC Lim Kok Siong, CPT Stanley Chua Hon Kiat, and CPT Teh Hua Fung, "Airpower in Non-Conventional Operations"; and Wesley, interview.

55. See airpower tables in "Audit of Southern African Development Community," 85, 97, 125.

56. Elder, "Role of Non-Lethal Airpower," 18.

57. Ibid., 24.

58. Smith, "New Law of War," 355-75.

59. Steven Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: The Information Revolution and Post-Modern Warfare (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, April 2000), xv, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB226.pdf (accessed 13 June 2007).

60. Ibid., xv-xvi.

61. Elder, "Role of Non-Lethal Airpower," 16-17.

62. Metz, Armed Conflict, xvii.

63. Ibid., 19-20.

64. Tom Cooper and Jonathan Kyzer, "Ethiopian-Eritrean War, 1998-2000," Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa Database, Air Combat Information Group, 2 September 2003, http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_189.shtml (accessed 30 September 2007); and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola-UNITA, Standing Committee of the Political Commission, "1999-Year of Generalised Popular Resistance: Communiqué no. 38/CPP/99" (Angola: Kwacha UNITA Press, 2 October 1999), http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/unita/en0510991.htm (accessed 30 September 2007).

Known for its low-tech forces and unconventional wars, Africa lacks the financial flexibility to employ costly, information-based airpower assets. The authors contend that the supporting roles of airpower are most compatible with the evolving strategic landscape of Southern Africa. Within that region, the fundamental challenge involves keeping airpower in step with defense arrangements and establishing stepping-stones for an airpower culture amidst ongoing integration. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Copyright U.S. Superintendent of Documents Fall 2008 | Notes | 1. Andrew G. B. Vallance, The Air Weapon: Doctrines of Air Power Strategy and Operational Art (New York: St. Martin's, 1996), 29. | 2. Ibid., 34-36. | 3. George R. Mastroianni, "Occupations, Cultures, and Leadership in the Army and Air Force," Parameters 35, no. 4 (Winter 2005-6): 77-79, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ usawc/Parameters/05winter/mastroia.pdf. | 4. See discussion of Russian airpower in Chechnya: Timothy L. Thomas, "Air Operations in Low Intensity Conflict: The Case of Chechnya," Airpower Journal 11, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 51-59, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/ airchronicles/apj/apj97/win97/thomas.pdf (accessed 26 April 2007). | 5. Within Africa the tendency is to have a regional perspective based on regional structures (i.e., Southern, Western, Eastern, and Northern Africa). The following countries are part of the Southern African Development Community: South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Malawi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. | 6. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 605. | 7. Strategic Plan, 2006-2009 (Pretoria, Republic of South Africa: Department of Foreign Affairs, n.d.), 7-8, http://www.dfa.gov.za/department/stratplan06/part1.pdf (accessed 24 May 2007). | 8. Laurie Nathan, "Consistency and Inconsistencies in South African Foreign Policy," International Affairs 81, no. 2 (March 2005): 363. | 9. We should note that some circles have doubts about this softhanded approach by South Africa towards serious foreign-policy challenges. For example, South Africa's silent diplomacy towards Zimbabwe is based on the notion that the latter should solve its own domestic problems without external pressure. One can challenge this approach from an ethical perspective, considering the foreign pressure mobilised by the ruling African National Congress against apartheid South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. | 10. The Office of the President is responsible for security coordination by means of the so-called Security Cluster. This coordination takes place without any coherent security policy or strategy. Since democratisation in 1994, the South African government, ruled by the African National Congress, has not developed a national security strategy. | 11. Rialize Ferreira and Dan Henk, "Military Implications of Human Security: The Case of South Africa" (paper presented at the 45th Anniversary Biennial International Conference of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, Chicago, 21 October 2005), http:// www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc/human_sec_henk _21oct05.pdf (accessed 5 October 2007). | 12. Defence in a Democracy, White Paper on National Defence for the Republic of South Africa (Pretoria, Republic of South Africa: Department of Defence, as approved by Parliament on 14 May 1996), http://merln .ndu.edu/whitepapers/SouthAfrica1996.pdf. In his study of South African defence policy, Evert Jordaan provides an excellent exposition of the influence of nonoffensive defence and nonthreatening defence thinking on South African defence since 1994. Evert Jordaan, "South African Defence since 1994: A Study in Policy-Making" (thesis, Stellenbosch University, Matieland, South Africa, December 2004). | 13. Laune Nathan, "SADC's Uncommon Approach to Common Security, 1992-2003," Journal of Southern African Studies 32, no. 3 (September 2006): 610. Nathan notes that by the late 1990s, the SADC was polarized by incompatible pacific and militarist visions of the Organ for Politics, Defence, and Security. Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Tanzania were known for their pacifist view, while Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe had a more militaristic orientation. | 14. Ibid., 608. | 15. Francois Vreÿ, "Eradicating African Wars: From Political Ambitions to Military Leadership and Constructive Military Forces," African Journal on Conflict Resolution 5, no. 2 (April 2005): 77. | 16. Theo Farrell, "World Culture and Military Power," Security Studies 14, no. 3 (2005): 451. | 17. Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff, eds., The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002), 458. | 18. Ibid., 459. | 19. Zhouying Jin, "Soft Technology: The Essential of Innovation," Futures Research Quarterly 18, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 2, http://www.acunu.org/millennium/beijing-0702 .PDF (accessed 9 May 2007). | 20. Jurgen Haacke and Paul D. Williams, "Comparing Regional Arrangements: The Significance of Security Culture" (paper presented at the Standing Group of International Relations Conference, Turin, Italy, 13-15 September 2007), 3-4. | 21. Col Dennis M. Drew, USAF, retired, "The Essence of Aerospace Power: What Leaders Need to Know," Aerospace Power Journal 15, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 24-25, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/ apj01/sum01/drew.pdf. | 22. Ibid., 25. | 23. Ibid., 26. | 24. Ibid., 30. | 25. Nathan, "SADC's Uncommon Approach," 621. | 26. Ian F. W. Beckett, Modem Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and Their Opponents since 1750 (London: Routledge, 2001), 24. | 27. Beckett also describes earlier experiments to use airpower against unconventional opponents. Ibid., 43. | 28. Dr. Ross K. Baker, "The Air Forces of Tropical Africa," Air University Review 19, no. 2 (January-February 1968): 64-67, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/ aureview/1968/jan-feb/baker.html. See also Herbert M. Howe, Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001), 42. | 29. Bjørn Møller, "Raising Armies in a Rough Neighbourhood: The Military and Militarism in Southern Africa," working paper, rev. version, March 2003, 16, http:// www2.ihis.aau.dk/~bm/SARIPS2001-rev.doc (accessed 19 June 2007). | 30. Ibid., 36. | 31. Howe, Ambiguous Order, 42. | 32. The SADC is responsible to set up a regional standby brigade for service with the African Standby Force of the African Union. During the August 2007 summit of the SADC in Lusaka, Zambia, the first elements of this brigade were demonstrated to the SADC heads of state. See David Masango, "Southern Africa: Stand-by Brigade to Maintain Peace in SADC," BuaNews, 17 August 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200708170705.html (accessed 22 August 2007). | 33. Providing air support during natural disasters and airlift during other crises is perhaps the most salient of these roles. See Col Les Weyer, "Peaceful Application of Air Power," South African Soldier 10, no. 5 (May 2003): 24-25, http://www.dcc.mil.za/sasoldier/2003/May2003.pdf (accessed 17 May 2007). | 34. See arguments by Emily O. Goldman and Richard B. Andres, "Systemic Effects of Military Innovation and Diffusion," Security Studies 8, no. 4 (Summer 1999): 79-125. | 35. Zhouying Jin, "Soft Technology," 13. | 36. Thomas W. Smith, "The New Law of War: Legitimizing Hi-Tech and Infrastructural Violence," International Studies Quarterly 46, no. 3 (December 2002): 359-60. | 37. A lesson again noted by the coalition forces during the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. | 38. Zhouying Jin, "Soft Technology," 17. | 39. Hussein Solomon, ed., Towards a Common Defence and Security Policy in the Southern African Development Community (Pretoria, Republic of South Africa: Africa Institute of South Africa, 2004), 134. | DR. FRANCOIS VREÜ | DR. ABEL ESTERHUYSE | Dr. Francois Vrey (MMil, PhD, Stellenbosch University) is a senior lecturer at the School for Security and Africa Studies, Faculty of Military Science (South African Military Academy), Stellenbosch University. He is the current editor of the academic journal Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, Before joining the Faculty of Military Science, he served as an infantry officer in several operational and training postings. | Dr. Abel Esterfauyse (MA, Pretoria University; PhD, Stellenbosch University) is a senior lecturer at the School for Security and Africa Studies, Faculty of Military Science (South African Military Academy), Stellenbosch University. Before joining the Faculty of Military Science, he served as an intelligence officer in several operational and training postings in the South African Army, including tours of duty at 61 Mechanised Battalion Group and the South African Army Combat Training Centre.