The most cursory glance at any world map confirms that SA is the country in the world least vulnerable to foreign naval attack. Thousands of kilometres of oceans protect us.

As for a landward attack, poor Zimbabwe has not enough petrol to fuel its economy, let alone to invade SA.

Only the US has the capability to attack SA. During the Defence Review naval officers seriously argued that submarines make small navies important and that SA needs that capacity "to give the Americans a bloody nose".

The thought that three submarines might deter an American invasion is childish. In such an event SA had better make a better plan.

The alternative of using submarines for peacekeeping operations in Africa - including leapfrogging the cataracts of the Congo River - is even more bizarre than their touted use to protect fish.

Arms correspondent Helmoed Römer Heitman (Navy boost to keep peacetime peaceful, April 8) offers "illegal fishing, drug and gun smuggling, pollution and piracy" as reasons for SA to be spending billions of rands on seven warships.

Yet given the need to protect and police marine resources, specialised civilian vessels with specialised civilian crews, that is a coastguard instead of a navy designed for war, are both more effective and vastly cheaper.

Meanwhile, the real and immediate threat to SA's security is poverty. While Heitman happily squanders R53bn plus on warships and warplanes, 35% of our people are unemployed. Seven million people will die of AIDS during the next five years.

Yet the government repeatedly bleats financial constraints prevent implementation of the social upliftment commitments that are contained in the SA Constitution.

Human security relating to people - jobs, housing, education, health services, the environment - clearly require SA's financial priority ahead of Heitman's antiquated 19th-century, Eurocentric notions of gunboat diplomacy.

The expenditure on three submarines could alone rehouse all of SA's shack dwellers. Cancel the arms deal.

With acknowledgements to Terry Crawford-Browne and Business Day.