China, Russia and Iran have commenced a week-long joint naval exercise in South African waters, an operation the host nation has described as part of the BRICS Plus initiative aimed at enhancing maritime safety and promoting cooperative economic activities across the global South.
The exercise, named “WILL FOR PEACE 2026,” represents a broadening of the original BRICS alliance — composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — to include new members under the expanded BRICS Plus framework. These include Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates. South Africa has characterised the operation as a collaborative effort to strengthen interoperability among the participating navies and to safeguard vital shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean.
While South Africa has a history of conducting bilateral naval exercises with both China and Russia, this operation marks one of the first under the newly formalised BRICS Plus structure. It comes amid heightened global geopolitical tensions, particularly between the administration of United States President Donald Trump and several BRICS Plus states, including China, Iran, South Africa and Brazil.
At the opening ceremony, senior Chinese naval officials confirmed that Brazil, Egypt and Ethiopia are attending as observers. According to the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), the exercise aims to improve operational coordination among the BRICS Plus navies through shared maritime safety and joint rescue drills. Acting spokesperson for joint operations, Lieutenant Colonel Mpho Mathebula, stated that all member nations were invited to participate.
Mathebula emphasised that the naval operation is “not a political arrangement” and that “there is no hostility towards any nation.” She further noted that South Africa maintains a policy of multilateral engagement, pointing out that its navy has also conducted cooperative exercises with the United States Navy. “This is a naval exercise. The intention is for us to improve our capabilities and share information,” she said.
However, the move has attracted domestic debate. The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s second largest political party and a member of the governing coalition led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, expressed concern that participation in the exercises “contradicts our stated neutrality.” The party argued that South Africa’s involvement risked “positioning the country as a pawn in broader global power contests.”
Political analysts have noted that while the BRICS Plus format is often viewed through the prism of strategic competition with Western powers, its stated purpose remains rooted in the pursuit of multipolar cooperation and equitable economic development. For many African nations, participation in such alliances represents an opportunity to redefine engagement on terms that reflect continental priorities — including maritime security, infrastructure investment and trade diversification.
The South African government has maintained that its foreign policy is guided by non-alignment and a commitment to peaceful international collaboration. Within this framework, initiatives like WILL FOR PEACE 2026 are seen as avenues for strengthening regional security and expanding Africa’s agency in global decision-making.
