Military and security service personnel strengths | approximately 73,000 active-duty personnel (40,000 Army; 7,000 Navy; 10,000 Air Force; 8,000 Military Health Service; 8,000 other, including administrative, logistics, military police); 180,000 South African Police Service (2024) |
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Military equipment inventories and acquisitions | the SANDF's inventory consists of a mix of domestically produced and foreign-supplied equipment; South Africa's domestic defense industry produced most of the Army's major weapons systems (some were jointly produced with foreign companies), while the Air Force and Navy inventories include a mix of aging European-, Israeli-, and US-origin weapons and equipment; South Africa has one of Africa's leading defense industries, but funding shortfalls have limited SANDF acquisitions of both domestically-produced and foreign-supplied weapons (2024) |
Military service age and obligation | 18-22 (18-26 for college graduates) years of age for voluntary military service for men and women; 2-year service obligation (2023). note: in 2023, women comprised nearly 30% of the military |
Military deployments | 1,150 Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) (2024). |
Military expenditures | |
Military Expenditures 2023 | 0.7% of GDP (2023 est.) |
Military Expenditures 2022 | 0.8% of GDP (2022 est.) |
Military Expenditures 2021 | 0.9% of GDP (2021 est.) |
Military Expenditures 2020 | 1.1% of GDP (2020 est.) |
Military Expenditures 2019 | 1% of GDP (2019 est.) |
Want to know more about South Africa? Check all different factbooks for South Africa below.