It will become clear how Beaufre’s thoughts on the twin elements of initiative and counteroffensive were translated into action by the South African government’s security strategy and the SADF’s military strategy. Beaufre visited South Africa in 1974 at the invitation of the South African military attaché in Paris, and even gave a lecture at the Defence Staff College.[9] Under his influence, the Chief of the SADF (and later Minister of Defence), General Magnus Malan, analysed the communist “total onslaught” as being waged against four power bases: political/diplomatic, economic, social/psychological and security.[10] Malan believed that the answer to this total onslaught was a “total strategy” such as Beaufre proposed. As far as could be established, the first reference to a total strategy was made in the Defence White Paper of 1973, but it was mentioned only in passing.[11] Two years later, the idea started to take root and a more elaborate analysis followed.[12] In 1977, then Defence Minister PW Botha tabled a White Paper in which he identified the Soviet Union as the major culprit in the Angolan and South West African conflict, claiming that South Africa is “involved in a war”:
It is therefore essential that a Total National Strategy be formulated at the highest level. The defence of the Republic of South Africa is not solely the responsibility of the Department of Defence. On the contrary . . . [it] is the combined responsibility of all government departments. This can be taken further – it is the responsibility of the entire population, the nation and every population group.[13]
The total strategy was thus defined as “the comprehensive plan to utilise all the means available to a state according to an integrated pattern in order to achieve the national aims within the framework of the specific policies. A total strategy is, therefore, not confined to a particular sphere, but is applicable at all levels and to all functions of the state structure.”[14]
One should not be surprised that it took until 1977 for the government to come up with a coherent and coordinated response to what it perceived as the total onslaught against it. The catalyst was the role of the USSR and Cuba in Angola in the preceding two years. If these two powers had not intervened in 1975, it is likely that the wars and bloodshed up to 1990 would have been much more limited than they eventually were.
On 4 March 1980, the government accepted a top-secret policy document, informally known as the Green Book, in which the total strategy was explained.[15] The threat, according to the document, came primarily from the Soviet Union, which would use “proxy forces” (in other words, the Cubans, SWAPO and the ANC/SACP) against the Republic. This threat was so serious that it could “totally destroy” the country.
The document gave details of policies to be followed on constitutional, social and economic terrain. This followed closely the policy of the Botha government, which was to reform apartheid and to give blacks a stake in the battle against “communist imperialism”. The main pillars of apartheid were not really questioned. On the contrary, although the human rights of black South Africans were recognised in theory, this had to be exercised through the so-called black homelands. White rule over “white” South Africa had to be safeguarded.
As far as security matters were concerned, a growth in ANC terrorist activity was expected. To combat the threat, South Africa needed to establish a “constellation” of friendly neighbouring states. If this succeeded, the threat of a conventional invasion of the country could be contained to the area north of 10° South. If not, the threat could move southwards to South Africa’s neighbours. The document foresaw that South Africa would
ensure its national security through coordinated offensive pro-active behaviour on all power bases in the strategic and tactic areas. It does not imply that the RSA is striving for aggression against any state or group or is planning any territorial expansion, but if any threat rises from wherever against the RSA, the necessary defensive or pre-emptive operations will have to be conducted against those threats.
Moreover, the prestige of “resistance movements in neighbouring states” had to be promoted “where it is in the RSA’s interest”.
Based on this thinking, the government divided southern Africa into three strategic categories. The first was the heartland, South Africa and South West Africa. The second consisted of countries of tactical importance, and included Botswana, southern Angola, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique south of the Zambezi. The third category was the area regarded as of strategic importance, and which reached as far north as the equator.[16]
A new counterinsurgency doctrine
With SWAPO bands becoming ever more active inside South West Africa, the SADF urgently had to develop a proper counterinsurgency doctrine. The army had started a counterinsurgency training course in 1960, and was also introduced to American doctrine on the matter when then Major Magnus Malan attended a US Army staff course at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1962.[17] The course taught that “[w]hile a military campaign could delay an insurgency, it could be defeated only by nonmilitary measures designed to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the population”.[18] Malan later introduced this approach into the SADF.
During the 1960s and early 1970s the army (and SAAF)[19] had observers attached to the Portuguese colonial forces in Angola and Mozambique. The big expert here was Commandant (later Brigadier General) Willem “Kaas” van der Waals,[20] who later wrote a book about the subject.[21] The war in Rhodesia was also studied, especially because several South African units, as well as individual officers and NCOs, had fought clandestinely on the Rhodesian side. As a matter of fact, by late 1979, two companies of 1 Parachute Battalion as well as the entire 3 SA Infantry Battalion were fighting as task forces Yankee, Zulu and X-Ray, respectively, in Rhodesian camouflage uniforms alongside the Rhodesians.[22]
Beaufre was an important source for SADF thinking on the security-strategic level, where people like PW Botha and Magnus Malan moved. But such thinking often went over the heads of practical-minded officers who had to fight a war and kill the enemy. According to General Georg Meiring, a more widely read book was The Art of Counter-Revolutionary Warfare by the American military writer John McCuen.[23] McCuen recommends that the counter revolutionary should have clear and encompassing objectives; that the masses, especially the “silent majority”, be mobilised against the insurgents; and that the efforts of all state departments be united in a single, overarching and integrated plan.[24]
In general, most officers’ interest was limited to the tactical level. The main reason was the traditional contempt for intellectually schooled officers – a quality shared with the British Army. “From the time of Union,” Annette Seegers writes, “debates about the Department of Defence held that military experience counted for more than intellectual or staff ability. Staff courses and later joint staff courses at the Defence College favoured those with operational experience . . . Even for its elite, the SADF thought theory best ignored.” [25]
There were important exceptions, though, such as Lieutenant General CA “Pop” Fraser, Chief of Joint Operations in the 1960s, who in 1969 wrote an unpublished study entitled “Lessons learnt from past revolutionary wars”.[26] Fraser had made a study of the available literature about counterinsurgency warfare at the time and had distilled the prevailing insights for his readers. His fundamental point of departure was “that victory does not come from the clash of two armies on a field of battle”. Anticipating PW Botha and Magnus Malan’s total strategy approach, he wrote that counterinsurgency warfare had to be conducted “as an interlocking system of actions, political, economic, administrative, psychological, police and military”. The revolutionary wages his war by gaining the support of the people. A government can thus be victorious only “by recapturing the support of the masses, and by the complete destruction of that organisation and the eradication of its influence upon the people”. Referring to historic examples, Fraser wrote that most counterinsurgency wars were won militarily, but lost politically.[27] Because the objective of both sides is