Will for Peace and the cost of strategic pretence - DefenceWeb

Ricardo Teixeira

Exercise Will for Peace was meant to show that South Africa could host a complex naval exercise, engage major powers on its own terms, and do so without being dragged into other people’s geopolitical quarrels. Instead, it exposed uncertainty, poor boundary-setting, and a growing gap between South Africa’s foreign policy rhetoric and its actual conduct. It further revealed the stark gap between the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and it’s commander-in-chief.

By hosting naval forces from China, Russia, and Iran, South Africa did more than organise a maritime drill. It offered diplomatic space, legitimacy, and visibility to three states that increasingly define their global role through coercion rather than consensus. That matters. Military exercises are never neutral events. They are political theatre, carefully watched and carefully interpreted, regardless of how often officials insist they are merely technical or routine.

South Africa lost control of the narrative almost immediately. Government spokespeople emphasised that the exercise was “led by China”, with South Africa merely just playing host. This distinction is administratively neat but strategically meaningless. A host country sets the tone, accepts the delegations, controls the ports, and provides the political cover. Leadership can be shared on paper, but responsibility cannot. Once the ships arrived, Pretoria owned the signal.

 
What South Africa failed to do, first and foremost, was draw clear, enforceable lines. The later insistence by the Presidency that Iran was only meant to participate as an observer raised more questions than it answered. If such an instruction was issued and ignored, it suggests weak civilian oversight and a worrying disconnect between political authority and military execution. If it was never properly implemented, it looks like retroactive positioning rather than principled planning. In either case, the outcome was the same: confusion, credibility loss, and the impression of a state reacting rather than directing.

Timing compounded the problem. Iran is in the grip of widespread protests, driven by economic collapse, political repression, and deep public anger at clerical rule. Demonstrations had spread across cities and provinces, met with force, arrests, and communication blackouts. Against that backdrop, welcoming Iranian naval forces without context or qualification carried weight. South Africa did not need to issue moral lectures, but it could have acknowledged reality. Silence, in this case, spoke louder than neutrality.

Pretoria also failed to articulate a compelling strategic rationale. The public was offered familiar but empty language about maritime cooperation, shared sea lanes, and multilateral engagement. What was missing was any clear explanation of what South Africa actually gained. There was no articulation of specific security benefits, no discussion of capability transfer, no outline of how this exercise improved South Africa’s naval readiness or regional standing. When reputational risk is real, vagueness is not a strategy.

Equally absent was any effort to frame limits. South Africa could have used the exercise to demonstrate that engagement does not mean endorsement. It could have set visible conditions, emphasised humanitarian law, or anchored participation in clearly defined operational objectives. Instead, it allowed symbolism to dominate. The optics favoured visiting powers far more than the host, projecting their reach and relevance from South African waters.

What South Africa lost was not a single relationship or a specific advantage. It lost coherence. Non-alignment only works when it is disciplined. It requires consistency, predictability, and restraint. It demands that a state sometimes say no, even to partners it wants to keep close. Will for Peace blurred those lines. It reinforced the perception that South Africa drifts toward geopolitical symbolism without fully weighing the consequences.

There was also a missed opportunity domestically. South Africans were not treated as stakeholders in a serious strategic decision. There was no open debate about risks and rewards, no parliamentary scrutiny worthy of the moment, and no sustained public explanation of why this exercise mattered. Foreign policy conducted behind closed doors invites mistrust, especially when the outcomes appear confused.

None of this means South Africa should isolate itself or avoid engagement with difficult partners. Strategic autonomy requires dialogue across divides. But autonomy also requires judgment. Hosting an exercise is an affirmative act. It is a choice, not an inevitability. When that choice is poorly framed and weakly defended, it erodes the very independence it claims to assert.

Will for Peace was intended to project confidence and relevance. Instead, it exposed hesitation, improvisation, and an unwillingness to confront the political meaning of military diplomacy. South Africa did not lose because it engaged. It lost because it failed to lead its own engagement with clarity and purpose.

In geopolitics, credibility is cumulative and fragile. It is built slowly and lost quickly. By failing to define what it stood for during Will for Peace, South Africa allowed others to define it instead. That is not neutrality, it is abdication dressed up as balance.

Ricardo Teixeira, Associate Editor of the Daily Friend, is a defence analyst, and national security advocate. 

https://defenceweb.co.za/joint/diplomacy-a-peace/will-for-peace-and-the-cost-of-strategic-pretence/

This article was first published on the Daily Friend.