Doctoral Degrees (Military History)

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    Development of a supervised machine learning model to enhance urban water system management: a case study of Stellenbosch municipality
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Van der Walt, Rejoice; Theletsane, Kula Ishmael; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and Africa Studies: Military History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Globally, the challenges of conserving freshwater resources are becoming increasingly complex. Among the reasons cited by several researchers are the continuing growth of the world’s population, urbanisation, and the adverse effects of climate change on rainfall amounts and cycles. The complexity stems from the fact that human and natural systems are inextricably linked and interdependent. This makes managing urban water systems a major challenge that requires an integrated management approach capable of addressing the increasing variables that are interdependent and interrelated in an urban water system. To this end, tools continue to be developed to assist water resources managers to improve their management strategies, while data-driven methods are currently gaining popularity. Researchers have consistently emphasised the importance of accurately predicting the water demands of an urban water system as a prerequisite for effective freshwater management. However, the increasingly interconnected and interdependent variables that result from the interactions between human and natural systems pose a significant challenge to accurately predicting water demand. Consequently, traditional modelling tools are also increasingly becoming inadequate. The impacts of climate change, which lead to uncertainties in precipitation cycles, and rapid urbanisation are the main causes of the inadequacy of traditional modelling tools, as they cannot accurately quantify the uncertainties that arise in the system. As a result, data-driven machine learning techniques are becoming more common and are currently widely used in the Global North. In contrast, their use in the Global South is currently very limited, which is also true in South Africa. Another challenge posed by climate change is the changes in evapotranspiration and precipitation that limit terrestrial water storage and necessitate the search for alternative water sources. Among several options for alternative water sources, the case study area (Stellenbosch Municipality) has considered the reuse of municipal wastewater. However, to date, Stellenbosch Municipality has not developed this resource to any significant extent. It is therefore imperative to investigate the barriers to the development of this resource in the Stellenbosch Municipality. The main goal of this study was to use technology to develop a strategy for the sustainable management of Stellenbosch Municipality’s urban water system. The transdisciplinary research approach was the overarching research methodology used in this study because it provided the researcher with the flexibility to choose methods from different research traditions. Other research methods used in the transdisciplinary approach included a critical systematic literature review, interactive management, simulation, a standard cross-industry data-mining research process, and a case study. The mixed-methods exploratory sequential research design, characterised by two phases, was applied to the Stellenbosch Municipality as the case study, where the unit of analysis was urban water demand. The first phase consisted of collecting qualitative data through a soft management systems interactive research method from a purposively selected focus group of municipal wastewater specialists and community representatives. The collected qualitative data were modelled using Concept Star decision-making tools. The second phase consisted of quantitative data collection and simulation guided by standard cross-industry processes for data-mining research. Both traditional time series models and supervised machine learning models were developed for forecasting and predicting run-of-river abstraction for the Stellenbosch Municipality. Qualitative studies conducted on the factors that hinder the implementation of municipal wastewater reuse as an alternative water source in the Stellenbosch Municipality found that social issues were the main cause, followed by deficiencies in water laws, policies, and guidelines for the implementation of municipal wastewater reuse projects. The four principles of human-centred design were identified as an appropriate methodology for desirable implementation of wastewater reuse projects in the Stellenbosch Municipality. Quantitative studies that predicted urban water demand in the Stellenbosch Municipality showed nonlinearity between total water consumption and population/household growth, which should be the norm. From the exploratory data analysis (EDA), the variable run-of-river abstraction was set as the dependent variable for the modelling processes. The following models were developed: traditional Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average and Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average models and supervised machine learning models; thus AdaBoost, Gradient Boosting, Stochastic Gradient Boosting, Random Forest, and Artificial Neural Networks. The model with the best performance was Random Forest, followed by Stochastic Gradient Boosting, both of which the researcher saved and recommended for production. The study’s application of the transdisciplinary research methodology is a unique contribution to urban water management research. In addition, this study helps to highlight the importance of a human-centred design approach and the use of datadriven supervised machine learning techniques in the management of urban water systems, which the researcher considers a human-centred data-driven technological triad for the management of urban water systems. It is an effective framework for deploying novel approaches to water management in an urban setting that can be applied to other communities.
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    South African Defence Policy-Making, 1994-2015
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12 ) Jordaan, Evert; Esterhuyse, Abel; Mandrup, Thomas; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and Africa Studies: Military History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study focused on the making of South African defence policy from 1994 to 2015. Since democratisation, South African defence spending declined as socio-economic development became the national priority. After integration, the South African National Defence Force struggled with affordability regarding its personnel, main equipment, internal deployments, and increasing operational involvement in African missions. The research question was to determine why there is a disconnect between the means and ends in South African defence policy since 1994. To answer this question, a theoretical case study with emphasis on domestic policy-making was done. The work of Graham Allison was used to analyse South African defence policy-making in terms of rational choice, organisational process, and bureaucratic politics. This study found that South African defence policy is not made in a rational, logical, or cost-effective manner – as society expects – but is predominantly influenced by party-political considerations and vested military institutional interests. Established strategy processes of rational choice within the military, including threat assessments and cost–benefit analysis are prevented from informing defence policy or from addressing the separation between the means and ends of policy. From a perspective of organisational process, the military has, in the absence of coherent and knowledgeable political direction, protected its institutional interests, culture, and expensive conventional equipment by using standard procedures, conventional warfare doctrine, and secrecy to resist civilian-led policy processes, legislative oversight, affordability, and austerity measures. As a result, the military has become isolated from government and society, making it politically ineffective to convince Treasury and Cabinet to fund defence appropriately. In terms of bureaucratic politics, the liberation struggle norms, values, culture, and subjective practice of civil–military relations within the African National Congress, dominate the making of defence policy within the executive branch of government and the legislature, with little distinction between party and state. Although defence ministers have significant power to determine defence policy, most lack the expertise, skill, and influence in cabinet to curb ambitious foreign policy, obtain support for a bigger defence budget or to deal with difficult trade-offs involving matters such as personnel nationalisation. The prominent role of Treasury in national planning and budgeting, as well as the skill and influence of its leaders within cabinet and the presidency, created a tense relationship with the military. Military leaders encultured with a war-funding model never adjusted to the bureaucratic politics in a democracy where the defence budget has to be justified in terms of national priorities and financial principles. Treasury was never consulted regarding the available funding for new defence policy, and the military avoided deal-making and compromise with Treasury. Consequently, since democratisation, South African defence was unaffordable. A key argument is that South African defence policy is based on the ruling party’s fears about what the military could do to jeopardise democracy and domestic and regional security rather than objective security realities, budgets, and threats. To address these fears, the military was willingly and conveniently tied to a conventional role, force design, and funding pattern, from which it could not escape.
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    The wartime experiences of the men of the 2nd South African Infantry Division, 1940 – 1945
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12-15) Scherman, Jean-Pierre; Van der Waag, Ian Joseph; Kleynhans, Evert; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Sciences. School for Security and Africa Studies. Military History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The 2nd South African Infantry Division (2nd SA Inf Div) has long been considered the “lost” division in the history of South Africa’s Second World War. Unlike the other divisions raised by the Union Defence Force (UDF) during the war, the 2nd SA Inf Div’s combat record only stretched for approximately a year before the divisional headquarters and two infantry brigades were captured at Tobruk in North Africa in June 1942. Their short combat service, and the stigma of defeat, which clung to them even after the war’s end, meant a unique war experience – and an experience very different from other Springbok soldiers. Established on 23 October 1940, at Voortrekkerhoogte, the division had an authorised personnel strength of 21 315 service personnel, comprised solely of volunteers, who had signed the Africa Oath, whereby they consented to fight anywhere in Africa. After a year of training in the Union, the division embarked at Durban for the deserts of North Africa, where they experienced boredom and excitement as they constructed defences around El Alamein and were “blooded” during Operation Crusader. Their desert adventure ended suddenly with the capture of 10 722 members of the division at Tobruk. Initially held in prisoner of war (POW) camps in Africa and Italy, the Italian armistice in September 1943 provided the opportunity for many of the men to escape; the remainder were transported over the Alps to spend the remainder of the war as prisoners in Germany. Utilising the ‘New Military History’ approach, whereby the focus of a study shifts from the viewpoint of high-ranking men to that of the ordinary soldier on the ground, this dissertation examines the war-time experiences, from enlistment to demobilisation and memory, of these lost Springboks. Making use of their diaries, letters, notebooks, sketches, biographies, autobiographies, and stories, their war-time experiences are used to examine the formation, training, deployment, combat, and incarceration of the bulk of the men of the 2nd SA Inf Div. For the first time, the history of a South African infantry division has been studied in this manner - using the lived experiences of its men. Moreover, with sixty percent of all South Africa’s Second World War POWs originating from this division, this study provides further insight into the whole South African POW experience, including various divisional escape and evade narratives. This dissertation explains the network established by the UDF to aid escaping POWs, and the complex mission established to get the men home. Now, after more than eighty years, their voices have been rediscovered and examined, and an important gap in South Africa’s military historiography of the Second World War is filled.
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    General Louis Botha: farmer, soldier, statesman, 1862–1919
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-03) Garcia, Antonio; Van der Waag, Ian J.; Monama, Fankie Lucas; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Sciences. School for Security and Africa Studies. Dept. of Military History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Louis Botha (1862-1919) is a towering figure on the South African historical landscape. Raised as a farmer in Natal and the Free State, he rose to prominence through a combination of military service and government office and became successively the premier Boer combat general and later a British lieutenant general, premier of the Transvaal Colony, and then the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa. Botha’s influence on South Africa, and the wider British Empire, is recorded in the five existing biographies. While these works explain aspects of his life, they do not provide a comprehensive academic study. This dissertation bridges that gap in the discourse. Three of the Botha biographies - those of Harold Spender, Sydney Buxton and Frans Engelenburg – were written by colleagues and contemporaries, while the remaining two biographers – Johannes Meintjes and (more recently) Richard Steyn had no personal connection. Collectively these works are not archival studies, lack the customary academic apparatus, and mostly treat particular aspects of Botha’s life, as do the other studies that focus on Botha’s role during specific periods of his career, including but not limited to the Anglo-Boer War, the political development of the Transvaal and the Union of South Africa, as well as the Afrikaner Rebellion and First World War campaign in German South West Africa. This dissertation bridges this gap by providing a critical examination of the political and military career of Louis Botha, in a full-length portrait. It is, at the same time, a reappraisal, providing a fresh look at the man who helped shape modern South Africa. It offers new insights into his life and highlights both the positive and the negative aspects of his dealings. The man lionised for his military prowess, political nous, and governing competence, was at the same time badly flawed, wavering at times, and making crucial errors, side-lining whole sectors of South African society and sacrificing people of colour on the altar of ‘white’ unity. Botha was very human, imperfect, inconsiderate, and insecure, but he was also charming, attractive, emotionally intelligent, and confident. Botha was thus a complex man, general, administrator, politician, visionary leader, patriarch and racist who lived by the norms of his time, while moulding the agenda for a modernising South Africa. Botha is painted by some as the charming farmer and accidental politician. This dissertation provides an alternate view. He was undoubtedly a successful farmer and he proved to be an effective minister of agriculture. But he had realised too that his personal passion provided a lever of power. His career was founded in the old commando tradition that linked farming and landowning, to military service, government office and economic and further political opportunity. While he excelled at farming, military service and its reward brought territorial aggrandisement and social escalation. From landowner, Botha became a veld cornet, and this led him into the meeting hall of the Transvaal volksraad. From there, harnessing the opportunities presented by the Anglo-Boer War, he rose rapidly in rank to become the Transvaal commandant general, a position that he converted after the war into political office. Towards the end of his career, when South African prime minister, he once again had the opportunity to combine military command and conquest with territorial acquisition but in the name of a greater South Africa.
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    Forged in Battle? A socio-military history of South Africa’s 32 Battalion (1975 – 1993)
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12) Gordon, Hugh William; Van Der Waag, Ian Joseph; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and Africa Studies: Military History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South African Defence Force (SADF) and South African Police were involved in a protracted armed conflict in southern Africa from 1966 – 1989. Various protagonists in the conflict received backing from Cold War superpowers. South Africa made use of several “irregular” units, usually comprising black soldiers under white leadership. A group of former Angolan soldiers, who had been abandoned by their Angolan leaders, became part of the South African forces during Operation Savannah in 1975 and 1976. These men eventually became part of the SADF, and were named 32 Battalion. They soon built a reputation as one of the SADF’s most successful combat units, and were consequently referred to by their opponents as Os Terriveis, The Terrible Ones. Unlike in traditional SADF units, the soldiers of 32 Battalion had no choice but to bring their families with them when they joined the army. Their dependents could not be left behind in Angola, against whom they were now, in part, fighting. The SADF, and the officers of 32 Battalion in particular, had to find ways in which to provide effective support to the soldiers as well as their families. All the former Angolans of 32 Battalion –both soldiers and civilians – depended on the SADF to provide accommodation,access to food, medical support, financial advice, and social structure. In 1989, 32 Battalion relocated to South Africa. They were, initially, deployed in South African townships as peacekeepers, but neither the National Party (NP) government, nor the incumbent African National Congress (ANC) were comfortable with one of the most successful SADF units on South African soil. To the apartheid-orientated NP, the soldiers of 32 Battalion were, quite simply, too black and to the ANC they were the epitome of blacks who had not supported the struggle and sided with the apartheid government. The result was that 32 Battalion was disbanded in 1993, with little thought about their future. Drawing on newly declassified documents from the South African Department of Defence Documentation Centre, this dissertation traces the history of 32 Battalion, starting with their emergence from the Cold War conflicts in southern Africa, through their deployment by the SADF, to their eventual relocation and disbanding in South Africa. Using a “bottom-up” perspective not commonly found in South African military historiography, the dissertation pays particular attention to the way in which 32 Battalion’s military existence interacted with the social dynamic within the unit. The presence of a civilian component throughout their history facilitates a close examination of the areas in which the SADF was, and was not, successful in providing for an irregular, but highly effective, unit. Amid a plethora of 32 Battalion histories and memoirs, this dissertation is the first to provide an archivally based, “bottom-up” history with a social focus.