South Africa's COIN war in SWA/Namibia/Angola

[davidbfpo]

An article on South Africa's 'Total National Strategy' from the UK blog (yes again) Defence in Depth; it starts with:

Concepts of grand strategy generally stress the requirement of governments to outline clear strategic goals, and to ensure that all elements of national power are co-ordinated by ministers and senior officials (civil service and military) to achieve them. In recent history, one state achieved the apparent success of devising a ‘total’ strategy and of establishing a bureaucratic framework to implement it. That state was South Africa, governed at that time by the apartheid regime of the National Party.

It ends with:

Concepts of grand strategy generally stress the requirement of governments to outline clear strategic goals, and to ensure that all elements of national power are co-ordinated by ministers and senior officials (civil service and military) to achieve them. In recent history, one state achieved the apparent success of devising a ‘total’ strategy and of establishing a bureaucratic framework to implement it. That state was South Africa, governed at that time by the apartheid regime of the National Party.

Link:https://defenceindepth.co/2017/05/08...utionary-tale/

At one point there were books on this theme, many written by critics of apartheid and one by an American, Robert Jaster, maybe from RAND or IISS.