Source: Daily Maverick

This week, 13 South African soldiers have died fighting Rwandan-backed M23 rebels in the eastern DRC. The garrison in Goma is now effectively hostage to these forces, unable to move, resist, or evacuate. Not since the siege of Tobruk has there been such an utter failure in military planning.Now, with the region completely upended, ordinary South Africans are waking up to the reality that our defence force is in very real trouble, and not just at their base in Goma. Here are three big takeaways from this week’s crisis worth bringing to the fore:

1. Ordinary troops fought well, but were let down by their leaders
From all accounts other than the dreamland the Department of Defence exist in, the SANDF troops were poorly equipped, poorly supported, and left without much of a plan as to what happens in this eventuality. All that being said, the average junior ranking soldiers acquitted themselves well, fighting as best they could with what little they had.But poorly led they were. Doomed from the start, the SANDF garrison in Sake and Goma had zero air support from the South African Air Force, the funding and planning to maintain such a force has long since evaporated. Without critical aircraft such as the Rooivalk attack helicopter, which has historically worked very well against M23 forces in the region, our soldiers were reliant on Monusco foreign-piloted gunships, which proved hopelessly unreliable and inaccurate, doing little to slow the Rwandan-backed force’s march to Goma.President Ramaphosa ought to have been warned that this was a stupidly risky operation, and if he was, clearly chose to ignore it. The minister of defence and chiefs of service should nonetheless have been dogged in their pursuit of a stronger, more robust presence in Goma. But they were not. As we saw over the week, the chief of the army — who commands these soldiers — and the chief of the air force — who had no aircraft to support them — preferred to play a day-long round at an air force golf day.The fairways of Copperleaf apparently were of bigger concern to these commanders than the literal lives of the soldiers under their command.In any other country this behaviour would have resulted in immediate resignations. In South Africa (SA), however, the defence force preferred to justify the day of fun as important for charity. This speaks volumes of where our senior SANDF leadership’s minds are at: rain might delay a golf day, but soldiers dying on your watch will not interrupt the tee-off time.
2. Rwanda has utterly dominated the information war

At another level, the deluge of disinformation pouring from Rwandan social media accounts, government officials, and President Paul Kagame himself has completely drowned out South African communications.Conflict is always interlinked with the information war. How and when a conflict is reported on from official and unofficial channels is critical in shaping the narrative (from the military perspective). In this realm, Kigali knows the rules — or lack thereof — and has hamstrung everyone from President Ramaphosa to the social media managers in the SANDF.Put simply, we’ve proven incapable of responding adequately to the Rwandan messaging, and as a consequence this entire crisis has SA in the optical realm of bungling incompetents. The sad reality is that they might well be right at this point.
3. We’ve been warning this would happen for years

I have worn another hat of defence analyst for the past 15 years. In that time, I and many others in this field have been beating the doors down warning that the wholesale degradation of the defence force would be measured not in tanks rusting in the bush, but in bodies coming home in coffins.Now, tragically, we are seeing the start of this play out.In any other country, this kind of crisis would precipitate the gutting of military leadership from the minister down, and trigger a major rethink of what our defence is, how we fund it, and where we should be using it.
Here is a handy memo on where to start.
The defence force has crumbled. Now would be past time to get things in order, and reform the military into something South Africans can be proud of once again.