Faculty of Military Sciences

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The Faculty of Military Sciences is an academic-military institution that provides world class military contextualised higher education through teaching and learning, research, community interaction and professional military development.

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Browsing Faculty of Military Sciences by Subject "African battlespace"

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    A critical analysis of the military strategic lessons learned from South Africa’s participation in the force intervention brigade in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Pieterse, Johan Christiaan; Olivier, Laetitia; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and African Studies. Dept. of Political Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Security and Africa studies is a broad subject that is widely researched and documented, particularly the African battlespace. The nature and complexity of the African battlespace is a contemporary subject that requires in-depth research to understand, analyse and align future responses to situations of human insecurity, such as protracted armed conflict. The lingering conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a case in point. This study aims to provide a critical analysis of the strategic military lessons to be learned from the Republic of South Africa Battalion (RSA BATT) deployed under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) as a troop-contributing country of the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB). This study looked at the contemporary approach to addressing human insecurity in the DRC from a military perspective by discussing the RSA BATT’s contribution from 2013 to date. This study found that the RSA BATT’s contribution is driven by the South African Army Infantry corps’ strategy and philosophy, which, regardless of numerous limitations, strives to provide a tailored combat-ready user system (CRUS) to meet operational requirements within a complex African battlespace. Accordingly, this study analysed the SA Army infantry corps’ strategy by focusing on the ends, ways andmeans available to the RSA BATT in the DRC and the possible risks posed in achieving operational requirements. Few studies have provided an in-depth analysis such as this academic contribution. Therefore, this study joins the pool of understanding of contemporary multilateral military-strategic thinkers, which provides the audience with a South African military viewpoint on addressing contemporary and future multinational peace support operations (PSO).