section_path: Government and politics/Military
section_name: Military
paragraph_text: Military
  
  The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was created in 1994 as a volunteer military composed of the former South African Defence Force, the forces of the African nationalist groups (uMkhonto we Sizwe and Azanian People's Liberation Army), and the former Bantustan defence forces. The SANDF is subdivided into four branches, the South African Army, the South African Air Force, the South African Navy, and the South African Military Health Service. The SANDF consists of around 75,000 professional soldiers as of 2019. In recent years, the SANDF has become a major peacekeeping force in Africa, and has been involved in operations in Lesotho, the DRC, and Burundi, amongst others. It has also served in multinational UN Peacekeeping forces such as the UN Force Intervention Brigade. In 2022 the nation spent US$3.069 billion on its armed forces which is about 0.86% of the nation's entire GDP. Over the years, defence expenditure has been cut as the nation currently faces no external military threats.
  
  The SANDF are often deployed in crime fighting and whenever the South African Police Service (SAPS) are no longer able to control the situation. During the 2021 South African unrest, South Africa's worst violence since the end of apartheid, saw the deployment of 25,000 troops, more than a dozen military helicopters and heavily armed vehicles deployed in the nation's KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces to assist the South African Police in ending the riots and looting, this was one of the nation's largest military deployments since 1994, the largest deployment of troops since the end of apartheid was in March 2020, when 70,000 troops were deployed to enforce the nation's strict lockdown laws to combat the spread of COVID-19. South Africa has a lot of military bases distributed all over the nation, this includes two naval bases, nine air force bases and the army maintains large bases in all nine provinces of the country.
  
  The South African Defence Industry is the most advanced on the African continent and one of the most advanced in the world. As of 2020 South Africa is the world's 24th largest arms exporter, the only nation in Africa. The nation designs many types of weapons that range from armored fighting vehicles to ballistic missiles, notable South African-made weapons include the Ratel IFV, the world's first wheeled infantry fighting vehicle, South Africa also made its own attack helicopter known as the " Rooivalk " which is known to be one of the most advanced attack helicopters in the world. In recent years a R16 billion ($1 billion) contract was signed with the local defence industry which aims to produce 244 units of Badger IFV for the SANDF.
  
  South Africa is the only African country to have successfully developed nuclear weapons. It became the first country (followed by Ukraine) with nuclear capability to voluntarily renounce and dismantle its programme and in the process signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991. South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s. South Africa is alleged to have conducted a nuclear test over the Atlantic in 1979, although this is officially denied; de Klerk maintained that South Africa had "never conducted a clandestine nuclear test." Six nuclear devices were completed between 1980 and 1990 but all were dismantled by 1991. In 2017, South Africa signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.