In his State of the Nation Address on 12 February 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa put organized crime at the top of his agenda, and announced that South Africa would once again be deploying its army to tackle gang violence. For this to be more than a symbolic gesture, the country needs to look carefully at what past military operations achieved and failed to achieve, as well as how organized violence and criminal markets respond to this type of pressure.

Military deployment may be a decisive political signal, but it is also a policy reflex – a response that seems effective in the short term, but struggles to deliver long-lasting reductions in criminal activity. As one member of a community organization involved in gang violence prevention said, ‘If past trends are anything to go by, we will have no meaningful or sustainable effect on gang violence in the long run.’

Precedents of domestic military deployment

Although South Africa’s democratic transition was built on the demilitarization of internal security, since the mid-1990s the state has repeatedly called on the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to help the South African Police Service (SAPS) combat crime. In 2008 and 2012, the army was drafted in to restore order during bouts of xenophobic violence, and in 2015 these efforts were formalized under Operation Fiela, a cross-sector law and order initiative. In 2019, Ramaphosa authorized the formation of Operation Prosper, under which the SANDF would support the police in combating gang activity and illegal mining, and securing national key points such as power stations. Prosper has been extended multiple times, and the current deployment appears to fall within the same framework.

Each of these initiatives was launched during a state of crisis. However, they all encountered the same structural limitations: while soldiers can establish temporary control, they cannot maintain it. In response to Ramaphosa’s most recent announcement, a Manenberg resident said: ‘So the police and the army come here – so what? They come here all the time. It is mos just another day here in gangsters’ paradise. Nothing has changed.’

And these dynamics are borne out internationally. Countries facing entrenched organized crime, such as Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, have turned to militarized deployments during periods of unrest, but while these operations may temporarily restore public order, they have never led to a structural reduction in organized crime.

Relief without results

South Africa has recent evidence on the issue. A quantitative evaluation of the 2019 military deployment to counter gang violence on the Cape Flats found that there was no significant decrease in homicides associated with the army’s presence. According to a former SAPS member, violent incidents shifted to areas where troops were not present – organized crime adapts. This is not to say nothing happened on the ground. Residents may have experienced temporary relief in certain streets at certain times, and the police may have had more scope for operations. But the deeper drivers of violence, including the availability of firearms, cycles of retaliation, gang governance and local protection economies, remained largely unaffected.

The facts suggest that this operation was driven more by political optics than by sound, evidence-based practice. The practical lesson is this: if SANDF deployment is not accompanied by investigations that target those at the top of the criminal hierarchy – the brokers of gun trafficking, hitmen-for-hire, corruption enablers and those who finance them – then violence will simply adapt and rebound elsewhere.

Operation Fiela offers another illustration. Publicly promoted as a high‑visibility operation to ‘restore order’, it was widely criticized for appearing to target foreign nationals with warrantless searches, and for blurring policing and immigration mandates. Its outcomes highlight how quickly legitimacy can erode when large-scale operations are perceived to be indiscriminate or to violate citizens’ rights.

Outcomes, risks and opportunities

The limits of domestic military deployment become even more apparent when considered alongside its operational risks and structural constraints. Armies excel at rapid mobilization and short-term stabilization. In criminological terms, they create a temporary incapacitation effect: more checkpoints, more patrols, more friction for armed actors and reduced displays of brazen violence. But organized crime is not fundamentally a street phenomenon. It is a system of networks, corruption, money flows and supply chains. The decisive tools to combat it lie in intelligence, financial tracing, witness protection and prosecutorial capacity. Militarized responses emerge when these systems have already been allowed to hollow out the state’s law enforcement capacity, signalling institutional weakness rather than strength.

Military raids and intimidation also risk endangering public trust and eroding the local intelligence pipeline. This is when organized crime thrives. Criminal markets are sustained when witnesses won’t talk, communities will not cooperate and law enforcement is seen as predatory.

Corruption complicates the picture further. In his State of the Nation speech, Ramaphosa explicitly referenced the Madlanga Commission and its findings of ‘rampant corruption’ within police structures, promising swift investigations, re-vetting of senior management and lifestyle audits. And not without cause. Institutional integrity is central to the success of any organized crime strategy, and military deployments do not circumvent these vulnerabilities. If the police units involved in an operation are compromised, intelligence could be leaked, priorities could be shifted through selective enforcement, and there is the risk that a deployment could amplify the power of factions with the best access to state information.

South Africa has experienced this risk first-hand. In the Western Cape, for instance, repeated public allegations of links between police officers and gangs have been serious enough to trigger calls for formal inquiries and oversight scrutiny. International experience reinforces these concerns. In Brazil and Mexico, senior military figures have voiced concerns about corruption and the politicization of the military when it is called upon to compensate for the failings of civilian policing.

Beyond force: Lessons from Latin America

More broadly, Latin America’s long history with militarized public security provides a striking cautionary precedent. In Mexico, the army’s decades-long involvement in anti-crime operations has been associated with human-rights violations and persistent impunity, without sustained reductions in cartel violence. In Brazil, particularly in Rio de Janeiro, military involvement in public security has frequently led to increased state violence, high-casualty operations and deep community trauma, but no long-term reduction in organized armed control.

‘[The] army is just like another gang that we fight.’

The lesson from Latin America is not that force is never necessary. Rather, it is that the use of force without institutional reform quickly becomes the default system. Once that happens, a brutal loop can ensue, with the state and criminal groups escalating their actions while communities are caught in the middle. South Africa is in danger of facing a similar deterioration, as interviews with communities on the ground have made clear. As one gang member put it: ‘[The] army is just like another gang that we fight.’

If the deployment of the South African military becomes a step towards strengthening the justice pipeline, it could be a meaningful contribution. But if it becomes a substitute for that pipeline, it will disappoint – again. A more credible approach would treat deployment as a strictly time-bound stabilization while the state invests in capabilities essential to collapsing criminal ecosystems, such as coordinated prevention, improved witness and investigator protection, credible anti-corruption work, cutting off the supply of illicit firearms, seizing assets and disrupting cash logistics. Most importantly, the state must build cases that expose syndicate hierarchies and secure convictions. It is these actions collectively that would shift the risk calculus for criminal networks.