The scuttlebutt over Iran’s participation in the naval war games that took place off South Africa’s coast — and the cozy cocktail parties — highlights governance failures not only in military discipline and submission to civilian control, but also in national security, diplomacy and constitutional governance.
Over six months South African National Defence Force (SANDF) generals produced a hat-trick of military defiance without consequences such as forced retirement, demotion or cashiering.
The participation of Iranian vessels in Exercise Will for Peace — despite president and commander-in-chief Cyril Ramaphosa’s instruction that they be observers only, which his defence minister says was “clearly communicated” to all — is the latest incident.
In November at a gala event navy chief vice-admiral Monde Lobese bemoaned military defunding as “unpatriotic”, like attempts to replace the state’s security machinery with private players. And during his August visit to Iran, SANDF chief Gen Rudzani Maphwanya took a political turn, talking about how the countries shared common goals and stood for oppressed people worldwide.
Maphwanya earned a meeting with Ramaphosa, Lobese a reprimand away from public view. Both stayed in their jobs, pensions secured — showing that rank-and-file politicisation and defiance pay off. This has underscored South Africa’s hollowed-out constitutional command authority.
In today’s fracturing global geopolitics, where the US uses tariffs and military force to try to get its way from Venezuela to Gaza and Greenland, South Africa is cackhanded in its foreign affairs and defence policy choices. Its doctrines are based on a national interest that, like the national security policy, resembles more of a laundry list of historical musings and wishes than actionable strategy.
In today’s fracturing global geopolitics, where the US uses tariffs and military force to try to get its way from Venezuela to Gaza and Greenland, South Africa is cackhanded in its foreign affairs and defence policy choices.
It’s unfortunate timing that Iran’s warships were in South African waters as the theocracy’s security forces killed thousands of protesters, according to international human rights groups, during countrywide demonstrations against escalating food prices and economic hardship. But the timing is not the issue; it is that for days, amid deliberate obfuscation, South African officials indicated that China was in charge of invitations and the organisation of Exercise Will for Peace.
In effect, this argument means South Africa surrendered its sovereignty, which, given the country’s obsession with autonomy and national security, is plainly odd. It’s also not true, if the Indian government is to be believed. The exercises were “entirely a South African initiative in which some Brics countries took part”, India’s external affairs ministry said in a statement. But not India, as it was not a regular Brics activity.
Meanwhile, the president has a kaffeeklatsch with his national security adviser and the ministers of defence, intelligence and international relations. It remains unclear what, if anything, was done by the national intelligence co-ordinating committee, the statutory entity with direct access to the president. Or the National Security Council.
This illustrates that the presidency, which centralised powers to co-ordinate governance, failed to build the required capacity and advisory and administrative support for the job. It seems unable or unwilling to exercise its constitutional remit. Yet it is a huge democratic risk not to do the hard work to realise the national interest and national security in the interest of South Africa, not just for a small elite with blue lights and a shield against accountability.
Posting on X about the Iranian war games saga, African Defence Review director Darren Olivier called on parliament to step up: “The public needs to know exactly who did what when. Just as importantly, and something the presidency has not clarified, [is] why neither the president nor the minister of defence took any action for an entire week while the exercises continued.”
The political theatre at parliament often lets the institution down. But a military board of inquiry will not restore civilian control or strategic coherence. This is not a one-off diplomatic misstep but part of a hat-trick of military defiance. Constitutional civilian command authority is restored only with public accountability.
• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.
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