Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-06

MR MACADAM: 2A strategy;  it lies at the heart of military doctrine;  it lies at the heart of military training and at the end of the day it lies at the heart of military deployment, even if one has adopted a totally defensive posture.  I think it's important as well to stress that there are different levels at which offensive can be defined and indeed different levels at which defensive can be defined and I'll briefly mention then at the strategic level a country can have an offensive posture, it can also have a defensive posture and that basically reflects the national political intent of the country.  Is a country's intent towards neighbouring states hostile and aggressive, i.e. do they intend to actually invade it?  At a strategic level, if that's the case, then you would say the strategic disposition of country is offensive.  If one is speaking about an operational level, one would say that at the level of the battle, the - a country would have the capacity to react pre-emptively, to attack offensively and to actually wage offensive combat within the sphere of the battle.  That's the second level.  I think the third level at which the word "offensive" and "defensive" can be used is at the tactical level.  That's really at the level of the skirmish.  That's in an immediate area of operation, it's not a particularly range and gathering from what the witnesses have said here, that's the level that the personnel referred to and trained here were actually deployed was more at a tactical level.  There one can act defensively or offensively, although the nature of tactical deployment is such that offensive and defensive tends to be quite mixed up at that level, so I think one also needs to understand "offensive" in terms of the

MR MACADAM: /levels

MR MACADAM: 2A levels at which it could be waged.  In terms of the definition of "offensive".   As is the case with any area of professional expertise there are many definitions, so it is best at the end of the day to either refer to a definition that is regarded by most soldiers as being generic and also to look at a generic definition of "offensive".  Universally I think it is regarded that Klausavit(?) who wrote the book on war provides and is regarded as possibly the most authoritive person on military strategy and Klausavit says quite simply that the three characteristics that define the offensive are threefold.  The first if the capacity to invade a country and to occupy it;  the second is the capacity to undermine the enemy's political will and capability to wage war and thirdly - and this third one really goes to the heart of what makes the military offensive unique as opposed to political or economic - the third aspect is it is the ability of a country of one(?) armed force to annihilate and to destroy the enemy, because at the end of the day that is what armed forces are trained for, unlike other organisations.  That's the particular nature of the contract they have, either with the State or with the body politic.  So that in essence is the nature of the offensive.  There is a definition that I can give you that puts it ... (inaudible), with your permission, it's a definition taken from a SADF manual in 1980s, 1982 and it puts very lucidly, there's nothing unique about this.  This reflects the way under modern armed forces see it and I'll read it to you and it says and this document is available for people -

MR MACADAM: "During the offensive the formation

MR MACADAM: /"organised

MR MACADAM: 2A      "organised for combat to make the best use of the capabilities of all its elements employs a combination of fire power and manoeuvre to dominate ..."

MR MACADAM: and here I stress the following points -

MR MACADAM: "... to dominate, neutralise and eventually destroy enemy forces to control the terrain or to disrupt enemy areas.  It commands of commanders to plan thoroughly and to attack aggressively and violently to gain maximum shock effect in destroying the enemy including its material and will to resist.  This aggressive action contributes to success by weakening the enemy to the point where he can no longer resist effectively".

MR MACADAM: And I think possibly that's the best definition that you're going to get of "offensive", whether it's at a strategic, operational or tactical level.

MR MACADAM: And you'll make this document from which you've quoted available ... (intervention)

WITNESS:   I can make it available.

MR MACADAM: ... to all the counsel as soon as you've concluded your evidence.  And that you quoted as being from a South African Defence Force Manual?

WITNESS:   In the early eighties.

MR MACADAM: In the early eighties and today in the nineties, does that definition still hold in the new South African Defence Force or not?

WITNESS:   This is standard doctrine.  This is standard doctrine of any modern military armed

MR MACADAM: /force,

MR MACADAM: 2A force, so it doesn't change, at whatever level one is referring to it and there's nothing particularly contentious about it doctrinally.  It's shared by all modern armed forces and indeed it's shared by guerilla armed forces as well.

MR MACADAM: Now if we could move on to the next aspect where we would like to hear you on and that is the concept of counter revolutionary warfare.  Can you briefly explain to the Commission what that concept is, what it embraces?

WITNESS:   The concept of counter revolutionary warfare really originated as a result of the experiences that the French had in French Indo China, initially, where it was felt that in order to defeat a revolutionary army, it was necessary to take the principles of revolutionary warfare which at that time were very much the principles of the late ... (inaudible) ... and quite literally turned him on the head.  The true principles that really underpin counter revolutionary warfare, the two points of departure is that firstly in counter revolutionary warfare, unlike on the modern conventional battlefield, you cannot defeat the enemy by force of arms alone and there are numerable books that elaborate on this principle;  that the key thing in this regard is to actually ensure the political and the moral conquest of the population that you're seeking to win over.  Military - military force has a role in that, but it's always subservient to and part of the political and the moral direction.  So that's the first aspect.  It's a different type of war.  It's a political war in essence.  In order to enable to counter revolutionary organisation to accomplish those objectives, counter revolutionaries believe you take these principles

MR MACADAM: /and

MR MACADAM: 2A and you turn them on their head and this is being done by a number of theorists.  One theorist who had considerable influence in the former South African State in the 1970s and the 1980s and indeed to a large extent the counter revolutionary strategy of the State was based on that, is the - is Colonel John McKeon who was based in Vietnam and he wrote a book which is quite an authoritive book called The Art of Counter Revolutionary Warfare and he takes the principles of revolutionary warfare, turns them around and devises a counter revolutionary strategy, which is quite detailed, but which I could outline in a bit more detail if the Chair requested it.

MR MACADAM: If you could just outline the salient features of that concept to us.