When the Middle East catches a cold, the oil market reaches for a handkerchief. As warfare around Iran recently squeezed one-fifth of global shipments, international oil prices surged and freight rates ballooned, sending a shiver through energy markets from Asia to Europe.
What these shockwaves expose is how a hiccup in a single strategic waterway can cascade into a global price fever, including for an open, trade-dependent economy like South Africa’s.
For South Africa, whose trade arteries thread through increasingly contested waters, the country’s military posture offers less a shield than a thinning membrane. National defence has become a matter of ceremony rather than capability, precisely when the global maritime order is most volatile.
The most visible constraint is the wallet. According to the World Bank, South Africa’s defence spending peaked in the 1970s, reaching 5.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1977, as the apartheid government fought an embargoed war on its borders and within its townships. International trade bans forced heavy investment in a domestic defence industry, producing advanced artillery and armoured vehicles, while the military was increasingly turned inward.
Spending fell off a cliff after 1994 as the “peace dividend” was cashed and resources shifted to social priorities.
At 0.7% of GDP, South Africa’s current defence spending is slight compared to the global 2% norm. Nominal defence budget increases are largely a fiscal mirage. Inflation and a bloated wage bill devour the gains before a single new bullet is bought.
The 2025/2026 allocation of R59bn is set to shrink in real terms, while personnel and legacy costs consume the lion’s share of the pot. The result is a strained capability within a military that possesses a sophisticated inventory but diminishing operational reach.
Resource constraints are beginning to show in the hangars. While the South African Air Force officially operates 26 Saab Gripen fighter jets, reports from DefenceWeb indicate that only 13 are currently serviceable under a maintenance contract which expired in 2025. The training fleet faces an even tighter bottleneck. According to recent parliamentary reporting, the Astra PC-7 Mk II fleet is operating at a 9% serviceability rate, with just two of 35 airframes flight-ready.
The auditor-general’s findings imply these gaps undermine both a consistent air-defence posture and the steady development of new pilots. Helicopter squadrons are similarly stretched, leaving a gap between the hardware on the books and the capability in the sky.
On the ground, the army’s artillery and armoured capacity has rusted away through ageing platforms and underinvestment. The navy’s situation is equally leaky. Sea hours have plummeted from more than 11,000 a decade ago to just 2,641 in the past financial year. A leaner budget has restricted the navy’s role to littoral monitoring rather than regional presence.
South African firms such as Denel remain capable of producing world-class artillery and aerospace components. However, this industrial capacity now depends on foreign lifelines. Without domestic demand to anchor it, technical expertise is evaporating. Governance challenges and funding uncertainty mean the industry is struggling to capitalise on its own expertise, just as the world’s appetite for hardware grows.
This is where geopolitics — and South Africa’s alignment with Brazil, Russia, India and China (Brics) — acts as a potential force multiplier. The bloc offers a shortcut to capability, providing access to technology, intelligence sharing and industrial collaboration. Partnerships with India and China, both rapidly expanding their military-industrial complexes, could provide cost-effective access to drones, surveillance and cyber capabilities. In practice, these opportunities remain largely theoretical. Collaboration has been episodic and domestic institutional weaknesses mean the military struggles to absorb the technology it does manage to acquire.
While South Africa is developing clever monitoring tools, such as the Centre for Scientific & Industrial Research’s oceans and coastal information management system, hi-tech eyes are useless without teeth. These systems can track illegal fishing and environmental hazards across 3,200km of coastline, but they supplement naval patrols rather than replace them. A digital alert is no substitute for a physical interceptor, leaving significant gaps in maritime and airspace sovereignty.
The debate must shift from the total cost of the budget to the strategic focus of its allocation. Reallocating funds from a personnel-heavy budget towards maintenance and technology would yield far higher returns. Moves to strengthen Brics and global South partnerships could accelerate this, provided they are anchored in clear objectives rather than just diplomatic handshakes.
As geopolitical shocks from the Middle East ripple through global systems, South Africa’s defence capability reflects a widening gap between design and deployment. In a geopolitical landscape where distance offers diminishing protection, the cost of complacency may prove far higher than the proactive price of preparedness.
Sovereignty is a fragile inheritance. Neglecting internal structural failures and external pressures makes the eventual bill for its recovery far higher.
Packirisamy is group economist at Momentum Group
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