SA military beats the odds

WORTHY OF RESPECT: DEFENCE FORCE ACHIEVES MORE AND MORE WITH LESS

- SIPHIWE DLAMINI

It was either American novelist Mark Twain or British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who famously wrote that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics, which proves just how difficult it is to get to the truth. It is easy to twist facts to fit convenient narratives, but for the truth to emerge, it is vital for these narratives to be tested against other truths.

In the war for survival, the South African National Defence Force's (SANDF) greatest foe is disinformation in the battle for hearts and minds, not enemy soldiers taking aim at our members.

There is no doubt that the majority of our key equipment is on average 40 years old, nor that our air force is struggling to maintain serviceable fighter capacity, nor that our navy has maintenance challenges.

But what this narrative does not include is the fact that the threat that our country faces is of a very different profile from the insurgency war of liberation that ended 40 years ago and, indeed, of the conventional wars of invasion and attrition in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.