Saridan

[Rogue]

Koeistad - The government of Minister-President Pienaar has announced a comprehensive plan to revitalize Saridan's ailing military industry as well as reform the Armed Forces. As part of the plan, the government will be investing nearly 38 billion in the next 10 years towards the modernization and expansion of all branches of the military. Combined with this investment is a gradual increase of the annual defense budget, with the country aiming to spend 4% of GDP on defense by the end of the decade. Additional the Saridan Defense Force will face reforms aimed at managing the expected growth in size. The Air Force is to be renamed into the Air Defense Force and face a reform of its training methods. Additional money will be freed up to centralize training for all branches of the military. The new "Central Field Training" or CFT will be responsible for training throughout the armed forces, with several new military academies to serve as training grounds for officers and other high ranking personell. Examples include the planned "Pietersburg Naval Academy" and the "Sonskaap Air Defense Academy" which will serve as the main training ground for the navy and airforce respectively. 

The army will maintain its structure of divisions but expand on them, hoping to field at least four Pantserdivisies (currently two) and add a additional mobile infantry division, which will be solemnly focussed on mastering infantry combat. This expansion will result in the Army growing to 100.000 active soldiers, with around 20.000 active soldiers in each division. This excludes its special forces and air assault brigades. 

The SDF will also change its doctrine, stepping away from "total defense" and adopting the doctrine masterminded by Saridani general Roben Vorster, unironically called the "Vorster doctrine". Under the Vorster doctrine, the armed forces combine a detterent doctrine with a defensive doctrine. Under the Vorster doctrine the SDF will "focus on defense but deter when necessary". This in practive means that while defense of Saridan's territorial integrity is still the ultimate goal, the SDF will also be allowed and sometimes obligated to resort to deterence, using for example pre-emptive strikes or targetted operations to prevent adverseries from threatening Saridan in the future. While this is a clear step away from total defense, it still makes defense the ultimate goal. By adopting this doctrine, the government hopes to make the SDF more responsive to outside threats. 

Under the plan, to be executed by the Federal Ministry of Defense, the government will pump a large amount of the reserved billions into the state-owned Deronda defense company. With its subsidiaries, focussed on all kinds of weapons from tanks to naval systems and beyond, Deronda was once the backbone of Saridan's military industry. With renewed focus, the government hopes to make Deronda the foundation on which a new SDF is built. One of the first projects has already been announced, with Deronda Aerospace to modernize the existing fleet of "Cheetah G" multirole aircraft and procure at least 20 more of these new "Cheetah G-E" jets, which feature additional electronic warfare capabilities and improve on weapon systems, aircraft handling and fuel capacity compared to the older Cheetah G. 

Lastly, for future projects, the government has formed the "Commission for Air and Ground Equipment" or CAGE, a new procurement office to be headed by a presidentially appointed chairman. The new office will be fully responsible for defense procurement, from maintaining a up to date account on the military inventories to working with the SDF in ordering, approving and vetting defense procurement and purchases. With this move, the government seeks to move decisionmaking on these decisions from politics to actual soldiers in the field. Every year CAGE will receive a set budget, determined by the Volksraad's national defense commission and the ministry, and may use said budget for procurement and purchases for the Army and Air Defense Force. Naval procurement will remain under the government's jurisdiction, as naval projects are of larger scale and could potentially have more impact on the budget. 

All this is part of the government its plan to revitalize national defense and make Saridan a important regional player. The costs of these changes and investments worry economists, with the government to use debt spending to achieve its military ambitions, which could strain state finances in the long run.