Media
Tau is right about the decline, but the remedy misses the cause
24 July, 2026
Parks Tau, Minister of Trade, Industry, and Competition, told a defence industry conference in Pretoria this week that South Africa must confront three decades of decline in its arms industry. Defence force acquisitions from local manufacturers fell to R850m in 2017 from R26.2bn in 1989/90. Over the same period research and development funding dropped to about R500m from R6.1bn. Employment across the sector collapsed from 130,000 people across 3,000 firms in 1990 to 13,000 people across 600 firms today.
Political risk is a business problem, not just a headline
23 July, 2026
Operation Dudula and March and March are not political parties but they closed shops, disrupted supply chains and triggered a migrant exodus.
Why SA cannot subsidise its way out of becoming a failing state
16 July, 2026
South Africa is once again arguing about the Automotive Production and Development Programme (APDP). The key question is not whether this one programme pays for itself, but whether South Africa can keep subsidising firms and sectors while the basic services those firms depend on keep failing.
South Africa’s Missing Immigration Policy Tool is Foreign Policy
11 July, 2026
Ofentse Davhie writes on how South Africa should consider making its foreign policy a bit more Trumpian.
The manual nobody handed Pretoria’s diplomats
11 July, 2026
There is a ritual that plays out every few months in Pretoria. A newly arrived political counsellor, three weeks into a posting, sits down for an introductory coffee and asks a version of the same question: who actually decides things here now?
Coalition partners should review their own ministers
10 July, 2026
Political analyst Dirk Kotzé observes that “the driving force of this was very definitely the DA’s internal evaluation process” (Ramaphosa reshuffle driven by DA review, not ANC overhaul, July 5). He is right, but where the surrounding commentary errs is in treating this as a curiosity, something faintly irregular that requires explanation.
Germany funded its defence turnaround, South Africa isn’t
08 July, 2026
The Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, recently announced that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet has formally endorsed the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) “Journey to Greatness” 30-year plan to rebuild South Africa’s armed forces and eventually reach a defence budget of 1.5% of GDP. Although this may seem like a step in the right direction, recent government spending behaviour has not encouraged enthusiasm for this bold ambition.
Lessons from Cuba: when communists outgrow their own ideology
25 June, 2026
Cuba’s Communist Party has approved the country’s most sweeping economic reforms since the 1959 revolution.
The political science that explains xenophobic violence
10 June, 2026
Distrust of authorities and belief in mob action fuel unrest
The curious case of South Africa’s African Renaissance Fund
08 June, 2026
R100m was approved for earthquake victims in Türkiye and Syria.
SA’s foreign policy doctrine lacks the necessary budget
05 June, 2026
Mandela’s vision is being tested as economic limitations undermine global ambitions
