Global Firepower's annual rankings place the SANDF below Egypt and Algeria, though the statistics do not cover deeper issues with our sclerotic defence force
Global Firepower's 2024 military strength ranking has been released, featuring 145 countries, utilizing 60 factors in its Power Index calculation, focusing on weapon diversity.
The Power Index balances firepower by considering weapon diversity, allowing technologically advanced nations to compete with larger powers.
Special modifiers, like access to nuclear weapons, influence rankings. Categories include geographical factors, logistical flexibility, natural resources, and local industry.
The top 10 military forces see minimal changes, with the USA maintaining its top position. The USA remains the strongest military force, followed by Russia, China, and India. Turkiye enters the top 10, while France drops to 11th place.
The USA leads in defense spending with $832 billion, surpassing the combined budget of the remaining top 10 powers ($757 billion). The USA leads in air force strength, whereas China has the most troops and naval vessels, and Russia possesses the most tanks.
South Africa itself holds the 33rd global military strength position, maintaining its 2023 rank, behind such military giants as Greece and Singapore. It is the 3rd strongest military force in Africa, following Egypt and Algeria.
South Africa’s military personnel has very slightly declined in recent years, maintaining a degree of stability, but the average age of the personnel is 37, with officers aged around 44.
South Africa has faced challenges, particularly in air and naval power, despite notable land power. The estimated defense budget is $2.7 billion. While the index does not assess the condition of the military assets, nor the capacity to use them, it does provide a list of the military hardware we have in our possession:
Airpower:
Land power:
Naval power:
Notably, the country currently has no aircraft carriers, destroyers or corvette-class vehicles.
But these figures do not give a complete picture. The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is grappling with deteriorating conditions, due to budgetary constraints, corruption, and mismanagement.
The declining defence budget has hampered operational and capital expenditure, impacting equipment replacement, maintenance, and infrastructure. Financial distress at Denel, our key military supplier, further exacerbates the situation.
Personnel costs, constituting 62.6% of the budget, contribute to an excessive wage bill, raising concerns about the SANDF's efficacy, with critics arguing that the force is transforming into a welfare organization. The SANDF's average age is 37, indicating a need for lay-offs and fresh recruiting.
A recent proposal suggests offering severance packages to address the high wage bill, but the department defends itself by gesturing to potential skilled personnel loss, further reducing the SANDF's capacity.
While the force's size is not deemed excessive, the imbalanced ratio of senior to junior ranks, coupled with expanding missions, strains its capabilities.
Notoriously, our military was defeated in the Central African Republic in 2013, and fled the capital after losing 13 personnel in a military deployment to defend the CAR government against one of the regular armed revolutions that strike the country every decade or so.
With active deployments in Mozambique, and a pending war with Rwandan proxies in the eastern DRC, our military failures may well come back to bite us.
