Defence transformation in South Africa : sharing the experience with the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo : essay
“There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order”—Machiavelli This essay was written after a team of the Institute for Security Studies visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to share their experiences of the challenges of defence transformation with Congolese officials and members of civil society. It discusses the South African defence transformation process and experience in detail and highlights the imperative for visionary leadership, commitment and communication as prerequisites for successful transformation. The DRC faces a unique opportunity to design and create an optimal national defence force for itself, which will reflect its new and evolving national policy on defence, and therefore the needs of the nation. This poses an exciting challenge and true...
Leadership development in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Leadership development has emerged as an important theoretical and practical stream of management. As an area of higher learning, leadership draws from numerous academic fields and real life sources and therefore requires integration of knowledge with experience. There is an implicit assumption that leadership is important, that leaders make a difference, and that positive group and organisational effects are produced by leaders and the leadership process. To most people the importance of leadership is self-evident no matter the setting. In organisations, effective leadership facilitates higher-quality production with more efficient services; it provides a sense of cohesiveness, personal development, and higher levels of satisfaction among those conducting the work; and it provides an overarching sense of direction and vision, an alignment with the environment, a healthy mechanism for innovation and creativity, and a resource for invigorating the organisational culture. This is no small order, especially in contemporary times. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a vast country endowed with huge natural and mineral resources. But for decades the DRC has been through coups d’état, civil wars, rebellions, political turmoil and instability, and it also faced aggression from its neighbouring countries in recent years. All these events have impacted negatively on the state and have provoked the decay of public institutions, making the country one of the notorious failed states of the world (Tshiyoyo 2011:104). Given the state’s failure in the DRC, creating a strong nation should be a priority. The government in the DRC should strengthen the organs of the state in order to tackle the socio-economic crisis that has Leadership development in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1