The South African military and peacekeeping: Reflections on conditions, capacity-building and prospects

The original publication is available at http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pubSince the advent of a new dispensation in South Africa, expectations in Africa and elsewhere have steadily grown regarding South Africa's potential role as a peacekeeper in African conflicts. In fact, South Africa has been identified by many observers as the one state able to ensure effective peacekeeping on the African continent. On paper, South Africa's military capabilities appear impressive in terms of African standards. However, in reality there are current impediments to a major role for the South African military in Africa, of which the delicacy of the ongoing transformation process of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and financial constraints are significant. Moreover, it would seem that South Africa has thus far preferred the role of diplomatic peacemaker to that of forceful peacekeeper.Publisher's versio

Maintaining international peace and security : reflections on peace-support operations in Africa

CITATION: Neethling, T. 1998. Maintaining international peace and security : reflections on peace-support operations in Africa. Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, 28(1):111-137, doi:10.5787/28-1-202.The original publication is available at http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pubThe shift from a bipolar to a multipolar and multi-faceted world has reduced the risk of conventional inter-state wars, but has been the cause of several intra-state armed conflicts with an even higher risk of regional instability. Such conflicts and the resurgence of a global activism have produced a dramatic growth in peacekeeping requirements since the end of the previous decade. The international response, mainly through the United Nations (UN), has been to promote preventive diplomacy and, in a number of cases, to conduct peace-support operations. In brief, this paper points out that each UN peace-support operation places an extremely high premium on UN administration, organisation, coordination and resources. To this end, a multiplicity of contributions from various role-players is needed. It also points out that peace-support operations require significant commitments on the part of participating states, specifically the willingness to accept financial costs and fatalities in the interest of promoting international and regional stability. This is especially true in the case of African peacekeeping. This paper, furthermore, underscores the fact that the undertaking of peace-support operations in Africa is by no means a simple and easy task. The nature of peacekeeping missions in certain African countries have, in fact, resulted in an increasing reluctance on the part of the major powers and some of the other traditional troop-contributing nations to deploy on African soil. It concludes that the real impact of the post-Cold War era is that the burden of resolving African conflicts rests more and more on Africans. African countries and organisations are accordingly compelled to take measures and develop strategies to address the peacekeeping requirements on the continent.http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/202Publisher's versio

Time-domain ptychography

Through dedicated measurements in the optical regime we demonstrate that ptychography can be applied to reconstruct complex-valued object functions that vary with time from a sequence of spectral measurements. A probe pulse of approximately 1 ps duration, time delayed in increments of 0.25 ps is shown to recover dynamics on a ten times faster time scale with an experimental limit of approximately 5 fs.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, new title and minor text change

Calibrated X-ray micro-tomography for mineral ore quantification

Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) based assessments are the most widely used and trusted imaging technique for mineral ore quantification. X-ray micro tomography (XMT) is a more recent addition to the mineralogy toolbox, but with the potential to extend the measurement capabilities into the three dimensional (3D) assessment of properties such as mineral liberation, grain size and textural characteristics. In addition, unlike SEM based assessments which require the samples to be sectioned, XMT is non-invasive and non-destructive. The disadvantage of XMT, is that the mineralogy must be inferred from the X-ray attenuation measurements, which can make it hard to distinguish from one another, whereas SEM when coupled with Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX) provides elemental compositions and thus a more direct method for distinguishing different minerals. A new methodology that combines both methods at the mineral grain level is presented. The rock particles used to test the method were initially imaged in 3D using XMT followed by sectioning and the 2D imaging of the slices using SEM-EDX. An algorithm was developed that allowed the mineral grains in the 2D slice to be matched with their 3D equivalents in the XMT based images. As the mineralogy of the grains from the SEM images can be matched to a range of X-ray attenuations, this allows minerals which have similar attenuations to one another to be distinguished, with the level of uncertainty in the classification quantified. In addition, the methodology allowed for the estimation of the level of uncertainty in the quantification of grain size by XMT, the assessment of stereological effects in SEM 2D images and ultimately obtaining a simplified 3D mineral map from low energy XMT images. Copper sulphide ore fragments, with chalcopyrite and pyrite as the main sulphide minerals, were used to demonstrate the effectiveness of this procedure

The emerging South African profile in Africa: Reflections on the significance of South Africa's entrance into peacekeeping

Since the political transformation in South Africa in 1994, there has been a steady growth in expectations in Africa and elsewhere regarding South Africa's role as a peacekeeper in African conflicts. With its participation in two peace missions of the United Nations (UN) in Africa, the country now seeks to take up its rightful role in international peacekeeping, both politically and militarily. It can rightly be stated that South Africa's engagement in peacekeeping is of great interest from a foreign policy and security point of view. This paper endeavours to discuss South Africa's emerging profile in Africa. Especially, it attempts to reflect and comment on the significance and importance of the country's contributions to multinational peacekeeping

An investigation of the implications of the decision to close the abalone fishery and the impacts on abalone rights holders in Kleinmond, South Africa

Thesis (M.Phil. (Environmental Management))--University of Cape Town, 2008.Inludes bibliographical references (leaves 159-172).The overall aim of this dissertation is to investigate the implications of the decision toclose the abalone fishery and the impacts of this decision on abalone rights holders inthe Kleinmond community in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. This dissertation also looked at the role that marine resources play in the livelihoods of fishers and the impact of the closure on the livelihoods of rights holders. Potential opportunities and constraints associated with alternative livelihoods options for fishers were also identified

Book Review: Kofi Annan: A Man of Peace in a World of War

Meisler, Stanley 2007; John Wiley & Son, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. 372pp. African Journal on Conflict Resolution Vol. 8 (3) 2008: pp. 111-11

The SANDF after 30 years : Walking the tightrope between external and internal operations on a shoestring budget

Since 1994 the South African government’s commitment to peace and security in Africa inexorably drew the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) into extensive involvement in multinational peacekeeping operations. These external operations clearlyaligned the South African government with its articulated objectives concerning the pursuit of peace on the African continent and its (moral) intention and responsibility to act in a leading role on the continent. However, a dwindling defence budget and the burden of a high-tech force design increasingly impacted negatively on the SANDF to maintain and develop a sustainable capability geared for regional external operations. Yet, in the domestic context the government also increasingly expected the SANDF to render support to the SAPS as murder and death rates are comparable and, in some instances, even higher than death rates in high-intensity war zones in the international community. This simply means that the SANDF has the almost impossible task of balancing its demanding regional deployments with ongoing appeals by politicians and elements of the public for the SANDF to be of assistance in hotspots of high levels of criminality where the SAPS is unable to protect South Africans in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution. In the final analysis, the article concludes that there is a mismatch between what has been expected of the SANDF in the past three decades from its political masters on the one side, and its budget and related capabilities on the other