South Africa has reached a point where the debate about defence can no longer be avoided. The country continues to expect the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to fulfil an extensive constitutional mandate: defending the republic, protecting territorial integrity, supporting border security, safeguarding maritime interests, contributing to regional stability and assisting civil authorities during domestic emergencies.
Yet the resources allocated to the SANDF increasingly bear little resemblance to those expectations. This is not simply a military problem. It is a governance problem.
Section 200(2) of the constitution states that the primary objective of the defence force is to defend and protect the republic, its territorial integrity and its people. However, public policy continues to expand expectations of what the SANDF should do while the funding required to sustain those responsibilities continues to decline in real terms.
The 2026/2027 defence allocation of around R57.6bn amounts to about 0.7% of GDP — the lowest level since the advent of democracy, and among the lowest in the world. At the same time, South Africa faces persistent challenges that place increasing demands on state security institutions: porous borders, growing pressure on maritime resources, organised crime, infrastructure vulnerabilities, regional instability and the growing expectation that the SANDF will assist when other organs of state lack capacity.
The contradiction is obvious. A country cannot continuously expand strategic responsibilities while reducing the resources available to execute them.
The issue is not whether South Africa faces an immediate conventional military threat. The issue is whether a sovereign state can credibly maintain the capabilities required to protect its interests, respond to crises and deter future risks.
Deterrence is often misunderstood as an instrument of war. In reality, its purpose is to prevent conflict. Countries are less likely to face coercion or aggression when they possess credible capabilities and demonstrate the capacity to defend their interests. Military capability therefore functions as a form of national insurance: expensive to maintain, but potentially far more costly to neglect.
The challenge facing the SANDF is not only the size of the budget but also its composition. More than two-thirds of defence expenditure is consumed by personnel costs, leaving a shrinking share available for operations, training, maintenance, infrastructure and prime mission equipment sustainment. This differs sharply from the force design envisaged in the 2015 Defence Review, which proposed a far more balanced and realistic allocation among personnel, operational readiness and equipment renewal.
The result is a gradual hollowing-out of capability. Defence forces rarely collapse dramatically. More often, they retain their structures, ranks and platforms while the readiness behind them steadily erodes. Aircraft remain listed in inventories while serviceability declines. Naval vessels remain commissioned while maintenance is deferred. Vehicle fleets age while spare parts become scarce. Ammunition stocks, technical skills and support infrastructure gradually deteriorate.
The public often focuses on visible platforms — fighter aircraft, frigates, submarines, helicopters and armoured vehicles. Yet capability is not measured by what appears on paper. It is measured by what can actually be deployed, sustained and operated when required.
A fighter aircraft that cannot fly contributes little to deterrence. A naval vessel that spends more time alongside piers than at sea contributes little to maritime security. Equipment without maintenance, training and logistical support becomes a symbol of past capability rather than present readiness.
None of this implies that the solution is simply to allocate more money. Additional funding without reform and reprioritisation would risk reinforcing existing inefficiencies. Equally, reform without adequate resources would amount to expecting the SANDF to fulfil growing obligations with diminishing means, resulting in failure.
Defence realism is not militarism. It is the recognition that sovereign responsibilities carry costs
What South Africa requires is a realistic defence compact, built around three priorities.
The first is to align missions with resources. Border safeguarding, maritime domain awareness, airspace surveillance, disaster response and selected conventional capabilities should be prioritised according to the constitutional mandates, national interests and measurable outcomes.
The second is personnel reform. An ageing force and an increasingly unsustainable compensation bill continue to crowd out operational capability. Addressing this challenge will be politically difficult but cannot be postponed indefinitely.
The third is the protection of maintenance and sustainment funding. Equipment that cannot be maintained ceases to be a strategic asset. If the country wishes to retain fighter aircraft, naval capabilities or long-range artillery, the supporting maintenance, logistics and industrial infrastructure must be funded accordingly.
Only once these foundations have been stabilised should South Africa consider a gradual increase in defence expenditure. Any future increase should be linked to appropriate priorities, measurable reforms, stronger oversight, procurement discipline and demonstrable improvements in readiness.
This discussion also extends beyond the SANDF itself.
Institutions such as Denel, Armscor and the broader defence industrial base form part of the country’s strategic capacity. South Africa cannot sustain sovereign defence capabilities if it loses the ability to maintain, repair, modernise and manufacture critical equipment and systems. The defence industry should therefore be viewed not merely as a cost centre but as part of the country’s advanced manufacturing, technology and industrial ecosystem. Its contribution to economic growth and job creation should not be underestimated.
Ultimately, the choice is straightforward. South Africa can continue to maintain an expansive defence mandate while allocating insufficient resources to sustain it, or it can align its ambitions with its means.
What is no longer sustainable is the current position: expecting the SANDF to do more with less, while hoping that capability can somehow be preserved through rhetoric alone.
Defence realism is not militarism. It is the recognition that sovereign responsibilities carry costs, and that state capacity cannot be maintained indefinitely without investment.
Marais is a defence analyst and a former DA MP and spokesperson on defence
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