Why Didn't The Rhodesian Army Defeat The Insurgents?

Profile photo for Rick Brindle Rick Brindle · Follow Ex RAF Regiment, Registered Nurse, authorJun 4 If the Rhodesian soldiers were so effective, why did they lose the Bush War? Winning the battles but losing the war springs to mind. Let’s be clear, man for man, the Rhodesian soldiers were seriously effective. They were really well trained and highly motivated. They were also surrounded. At the time of the Bush War, there were about 300,000 white Rhodesians, controlling a country of 5 million black Rhodesians, and all of the power was in the hands of the whites. Faced with those kind of numbers, it was never going to end well for the whites, and it’s a tribute to the Rhodesian war machine that the minority regime lasted as long as it did. It’s worth noting though, that black soldiers made up a big part of the Rhodesian military, and they fought very well. At its peak, the Rhodesian Army numbered 20,000, the British South Africa Police, 40,000, the Air Force, 2,300. In total numbers, they faced a roughly equal number of insurgents/guerrillas/freedom fighters (delete as per opinion). The Rhodesians had to concentrate their forces to meet the insurgent threat, and they developed a tactic called Fireforce, which was very effective. Militarily, that worked. Politically, it didn’t. The black population had to be won over, and that was a problem that the military couldn’t solve, and in all fairness, that wasn’t really their job. There is a school of thought that the Bush War could have been won by both sides in 1979 with the Muzorewa government, and the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia situation. And looking back, maybe it should have been left at that. 99.8K views View 548 upvotes View 5 shares 1 of 6 answers