The fact that you don't see anything wrong with this is wrong on so many levels! Firstly, we are spending millions (read billions if you include the capital expenditure on hardware) to host a tri-country naval excercise with those naval power houses India and Brasil. Exactly what strategic and/or practical benefits could we possibly derive from such an excercise? Oh, and while we're at it, remind me again why we need a navy consisting of anything more than a few cruisers that can intercept illegal fisherman in the first place? Next, what exactly do we need a national space strategy for? Do I hear the sound of tax Rands being flushed down another bottomless toilet (more than likely a toilet belonging to some ZEE group)? Don't you think we should rather be spending time and money on developing beneficiation industries locally - you know, the kind that provide people with jobs and the country with economic growth. Perhaps we should be making use of our strategic advantage of being the industrial powerhouse of Sub-Saharan Africa and further encouraging and stimulating local industries who can generate growth by exporting goods and services (such as engineering services) to the rest of Africa. Instead, our government does its best to alienate the existing talent pool. To top it off, we are planning to change South Africa's economy to a "knowledge based economy"? Is this really something we should be aspiring to? I propose we would first need to ensure that the majority of our citizens get at least some form of decent education and basic services. Oh, and you probably would then still need the private and Model C schools that our tri-party alliance government is trying to get disbanded. Also, most countries that have attained some sort of semblance of this kind of economy went through many different stages of development over hundreds of years. We are currently stuck somewhere between stage 1 (agriculture based) and stage 2 (industrialised economy). I doubt that we will be able to get past stage two any time soon as our work force believes that they should be paid a doctor's wages to do a street sweeper's job. Hence, we cannot compete with other emerging economies such as India and China. In India for example, you find Chemical Engineering PHD's working as plant operators, getting paid R2000 - R3000 per month. The same job in SA is often done by high school drop outs (or in companies like Sasol) by guys with matric for R10 000 to R15 000 per month. All of this sounds very nice on the surface, but it is window dressing - expensive window dressing.
