EDITORIAL

Editorial

From a defence and security point of view, the first half of 2022 has been largely overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine towards the end of February. This marked a drastic escalation in the Russo-Ukrainian War, which started as far back as 2014. In February, following the Russian recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic - two self-proclaimed statelets in the Donbas controlled by pro-Russian separatists - the Federation Council of Russia authorised the use of military force. This prompted Russian troops to enter both territories overtly when President Vladimir Putin announced a so-called 'special military operation' under the pretext of demilitarising and de-'Nazifying' Ukraine. The Russian invasion was initiated by several missile and airstrikes that hit across Ukraine. These were followed by a large ground invasion of the territory from multiple axes. The Ukrainians, in response to this overt act of aggression, and under the stern leadership of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, offered staunch resistance on all fronts. At the northern front, in particular, the Ukrainians were able to stem the Russian advance towards the capital Kyiv, while Russian forces made several gains in the south and east of Ukraine. Throughout the invasion, the Ukrainians had shown a strong resolve in halting the Russian invasion, and by doing so caused considerable losses for the Russian forces. The war has also been marked by great acts of heroism and dogged persistence - especially by the Ukrainian defenders in the abandoned factories in Mariupol.

While the Russian invasion has been widely condemned internationally as an act of aggression, there appears to be no end in sight yet for the war. The Ukrainians in general have received overt support from the West, bar of course their active involvement in the war. This support includes political solidarity, as well as considerable economic and military support - particularly in the form of up-to-date weaponry, training and even intelligence sharing. The international community have also utilised economic sanctions and propaganda efforts against Putin and Russia. Unfortunately, none of these can detract from the large-scale human suffering and devastation evident in Ukraine -which continues to grow each day that the war continues. This is compounded by several reports of Russian war crimes committed in the Russo-Ukrainian War between 2014 and 2022.

It is evident that military practitioners and academics will keep on monitoring the Russo-Ukrainian War with great interest as it develops over the coming months. The war also provides several insights in terms of the changing face of modern warfare and international relations - particularly in terms of superpower competition, hybrid or conventional warfare, force structure and employment, defence policy, military alliances, doctrine, and intelligence and coalition operations, to name but a few. These issues will be hotly debated over the coming months and years, irrespective of the outcome of the war.

While the international geopolitical focus has been squarely fixed on the events in Eastern Europe, the Far East and Pacific Rim regions continue to be marked by increasing tension. Of particular concern is the recent Chinese security pact with the Solomon Islands, which could lead to a Chinese military presence - and even a naval base - in the South Pacific. This development is of course particularly worrying for Australia, since this move by China would directly threaten matters related to defence and security in the South Pacific region. The brazen testing of a new intercontinental ballistic missile system, as well as a short-range multiple rocket launcher by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in March 2022 was also noted. These tests once more occurred in direct violation of the international sanctions imposed against the DRPK and could derail any hope of sustained and substantive dialogue with the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea. If further provocations by the DPRK are left unaddressed, especially amidst their growing rocket and intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal and capabilities, the geo-political situation in the region could continue to deteriorate. The military tension between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan also continues to simmer. This includes continued breaches of Taiwan's air defence zone and the ever-present threat of a full-scale invasion of the island nation. Our attention remains fixed on these regions with the hope that the situations are soon brought under control through constructive dialogue and mediation.

In Southern Africa, the focus remains on the operational deployment of Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Rwandan forces to the ungoverned territory of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique to combat the Ahlu-Sunnah Wa-Jama (al-Shabaab)-linked insurgency. While it is generally reported that forces of the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) have scored several successes during the counterinsurgency operations, and in particular Operation Buffalo between October 2021 and January 2022, the troika of the security organ of the SADC approved the extension of SAMIM for a further three months until mid-July. The apparent reduction in insurgent attacks has further enabled SAMIM to move from a Scenario 6 to a Scenario 5 mission - which is a shift from a pure interventionist force to that of a force organised for complex and multidimensional peacekeeping. This change in mandate of course necessitates the reinforcement of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) contingent deployed to Mozambique, which to date has mainly consisted of special forces. The apparent success of SAMIM once more calls into question issues such as post-conflict reconstruction and development, the re-establishment and maintenance of law and order, the provision of basic services and, above all, dealing with the key drivers of the insurgency in the first place. If these matters are not addressed adequately by the Mozambican government in the long term, the security situation in Cabo Delgado may never stabilise - despite increased force levels. The South African deployment as part of SAMIM also provides an interesting lens through which to investigate issues relating to doctrine, force structure and design, military operations, defence policy and alliances among others.

Back home in South Africa, large-scale flooding in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape prompted the deployment of SANDF elements in humanitarian relief operations. In this capacity, they assisted the South African Police Service and emergency medical services to render aid and assistance where needed. It is also notable that, during the period in question, the SANDF received its first batch of Military Skills Development System (MSDS) recruits for basic military training in March 2022. This is the first MSDS intake since 2020, following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the SANDF remains severely over-stretched and critically underfunded while trying to uphold its constitutional mandate, despite the near constant calls on the organisation to ensure internal stability and to help with relief work while at the same time ensuring the defence and security of South Africa.

In this issue of Scientia Militaria, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2022, the articles consider both historic and contemporary issues associated with war and conflict, as well as defence and security-related matters. As always, it is hoped that these articles will provide key insights and act as a source of influence for individuals involved in the broader ambit of military planning, operations, management and higher education.

The article by Charles Van Wijk argues that the presence of psychological resilience appears to confer positive personal benefits, and may be particularly advantageous for individuals working in isolated, confined and extreme (ICE) environments - such as the South African Navy (SAN) and, in particular, navy diving and submarine settings. The article aims to identify contextually adaptive 'resilient' personality and coping profiles in such contexts. Van Wijk did this by correlating scores on measures of resilience with scores on measures of personality and coping, using specialists identified as good adaptors. In this article, Van Wijk presents psychometric profiles of contemporary personality and coping styles. By using bivariate correlations, resilience-associated, context-specific, diver and submariner personality and coping profiles were identified. The findings by Van Wijk show that the resilient profiles appeared well suited to their respective environments.

In the article by Dries Putter and Susan Henrico, it is argued that global changes in technology have always shaped the intelligence collection environment. With communications being revolutionised by mobile technology, such as recording, geo-positioning and photography, collection and distribution are ubiquitous. Smart mobile communication technology is also the driver of social media everywhere, at all ages, whether state or non-state, and non-stop. More recently, Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) became a key content domain for exploitation by the intelligence community. Initially, many organisations viewed (and some still do) SOCMINT as an Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) tool. Putter and Henrico state that, when considering the South African intelligence landscape, the concepts of democracy, transparency and intelligence oversight are calibrating factors to bear in mind along with the national legislative framework governing the use of SOCMINT locally. It then becomes clear that issues, such as the right to privacy, imply that SOCMINT is probably no longer covered by the scope of the OSINT definition, and that intelligence organisations collecting social media content and producing SOCMINT should adhere to the legislative framework governing the collection and use of social media content and the production of SOCMINT. The authors argue that SOCMINT and OSINT should be separate collection domains for better protection of the imperative of the right to privacy and national security requirements in a balanced manner by means of unambiguous national regulation in the interest of the citizen.

In his article, Akali Omeni reports on corruption mechanisms within the naval and maritime sector of Nigeria. The discussion begins with an examination of the disappearance of the vessel MT African Pride in October 2003, and the author shows that, far from being a one-off incident, it was indicative of the opportunism and criminality that naval operations within the oil-rich Niger Delta attracts. The Nigerian Ports Authority and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency constitute other case studies of maritime industry corruption examined by the author. He argues that such cases highlight the exploitation of relations between the Nigerian Navy and the civil maritime sector. Overall, the article identifies and discusses patterns of corruption mechanisms employed. These include the support of illegal oil bunkering, illicit agreements and contracts, unsanctioned oil tanker relocations, malfeasance in arms deals and other areas, and multiple instances of public office abuse.

The article by Sean Filmalter and Rigard Steenkamp suggests a framework for information and communication technology (ICT) projects that may address the discord of traditional project management, which is required for ICT projects within defence institutions. Filmalter argues that this problem is underlined by the pace of technological development, and the current problem of compromised project management. He states that, globally, no specific project management methodology is prominently suitable for solution delivery within defence institutions. The aim of his study was therefore to address this evident problem by the development of a framework for the project management of ICT projects for defence institutions. Filmalter in particular focused on the ICT function of the South African Department of Defence, which he used as a case study for the study on which his article reports. Ultimately, his conceptual framework proposes a hypothetically workable approach for the project management of ICT projects in defence institutions.

In her study, Arunjana Das applied moral foundations theory to explore the role played by moral claims in the eventual dismantlement of the South African nuclear deterrent capability. She argues that South Africa is the only country in the world that successfully acquired a nuclear deterrent capability in the form of six nuclear devices - and dismantled them completely. Das shows that some of the explanations given are strategic reasons, such as the removal of the Soviet threat after the Soviet collapse in 1989, the end of superpower rivalry in Africa, South Africa's increasing isolation on account of apartheid, pressure from the United States, and concerns about undeclared nuclear technology falling in the hands of a new black-led government. The author states that, while these factors potentially contributed to the eventual dismantlement, the worldwide campaign led by domestic and transnational movements, which sought to make moral claims by connecting the cause of anti-apartheid to that of anti-nuclear also probably played a key role.

In the final article, Hendrik Snyders reconstructs the early life and career of Arthur William ('Artie') Tully - a largely forgotten name in South African military history. Snyders shows that the Australian-born Tully, a professional boxer by trade, joined the republican forces during the South African War (1899-1902) while working on the Witwatersrand. After he was captured at the Battle of Vaalkrans, Tully became a prisoner of war on Diyatalawa in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). After the Peace of Vereeniging, Tully - portrayed by his brethren as a traitor - rekindled his boxing career and established himself in Singapore, Southeast Asia, working as a bookmaker, turf commission agent and mine-owner. While Tully's visit to Australia - after a thirteen-year absence - was largely ignored, just like his legacy in post-war studies, Snyders shows that Tully, like thousands of others, remained an obscure figure of the South African War. While South Africans ironically continue to celebrate the contribution of a range of other foreign participants in the war, for unknown reasons, they continue to ignore or remain blissfully unaware of the contribution of this Australian to South African history. Against this background, Snyders reconstructed the early life and career of Tully with a view to end his obscurity in history.

A selection of book reviews by David Jacobs, Carl Punt, Willem du Plessis, Jan-Ad Stemmet, Anri Delport and Evert Kleynhans concludes this issue of Scientia Militaria.

The Editor

Evert Kleynhans