Fifth Biennial Conference on Strategic Theory – 2017

​The 2017 conference is the fifth in an ongoing series jointly planned and presented by the faculty of the Royal Danish Defence College and the Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University. The organisers selects a contemporary African security theme coupled to selected speakers to be followed by a morning workshop and a book publication. The 2009 event covered Contemporary Armed Conflict in Africa, the 2011 conference dealt with The Military Culture of African Armed forces and the third one in 2013 covered A Post-piracy View on Maritime Security off East Africa. The fourth conference in 2015 focussed on the African Standby Force beyond 2015 and the role of ACIRC in particular.

This fifth event on Leadership and Governance is planned to highlight the interplay of leadership and security governance on the African continent and its surrounding seas. Integration and linkages of the aforementioned three aspects have become critical in African security debates with spill-overs to the continent’s security architectures. Contemporary African leadership promotes optimism and pessimism amongst audiences, but leadership traits also promotes or undermines security governance in Africa’s landward and maritime domains. To this end the conference is set up to cover all three topics and culminate in a morning workshop to outline thoughts to be published in a policy paper or opinion piece covering the important landward and maritime aspects for decision-makers to consider.

Who should attend? Decision-makers in the, political, military and business realms; security practitioners, academics and researchers; post-graduate students on African matters and African landward and maritime security.

Organisers: Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University and the Royal Danish Defence College.