Uganda People's Defence Force

The Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), previously known as the National Resistance Army, is the armed forces of Uganda. From 2007 to 2011, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the UPDF had a total strength of 40,000–45,000, consisting of land forces and an air wing.^[6] Recruitment to the forces is done annually.^[7]

Uganda People's Defence Force

1962

1995

Ugandan Land Forces
Ugandan Air Force
Ugandan Special Forces Command^[1]
Ugandan Reserve Forces

Kampala, Uganda

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

Vincent Ssempijja^[2]

General Muhoozi Kainerugaba

18 years of age

46,800 (2014)^[3]

US$933.6 million (2015)^[4]

1.2% (2015)^[5]

National Enterprise Corporation

China
India
Russia
South Africa
United Kingdom
United States

Military history of Uganda

Military ranks of Uganda

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After Uganda achieved independence in October 1962, British officers retained most high-level military commands.^[8] Ugandans in the rank and file claimed this policy blocked promotions and kept their salaries disproportionately low. These complaints eventually destabilized the armed forces, already weakened by ethnic divisions.^[8] Each post-independence regime expanded the size of the army, usually by recruiting from among people of one region or ethnic group, and each government employed military force to subdue political unrest.^[8]

UNGU I (Lt. Col. Wycliffe Keita) – May 2014 to mid-2015

UNGU II (Lt. Col. Richard Walekura) – mid-2015 to August 2016

UNGU III (Lt. Col. Keith Katungi) – August 2016 to July 2017

UNGU IV (Lt. Col. Mike Hyeroba) – July 2017 to mid-2018

UNGU V (Lt. Col. Stuart Agaba), 529 personnel – mid-2018 to July 2019^[84]

[83]

UNGU VI (Lt. Col. Nathan Bainomugisha) - July 2019 to August 2020.

[85]

UNGU VII (Lt. Col. Francis Odikiro), 600 personnel - deployed August 2020.

[86]

UNGU VIII (Lt. Col. Peter Magungu, or Mabunga), 625 personnel - to February 2023.

[87]

UNGU IX (Lt. Col. Peter Okwi Omeja )- February 2023 to present.

[88]

Command and organisation[edit]

Training schools[edit]

The UPDF has the following training schools:^[92]

Five division headquarters

One armoured brigade

One motorised infantry brigade

One tank battalion

Presidential Guard brigade

One engineer brigade

One commando battalion

5 infantry divisions (total: 16 infantry brigades)

One artillery brigade

Two air defence battalions

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2010). . Armstrade.sipri.org. Archived from the original on 14 April 2010. Retrieved 20 November 2014.

"Trade Registers (as at 14 April 2010)"

"World Defence Almanac". Military Technology. XXXII (1). Bonn, Germany: Monch Publishing Group: 335. 0722-3226.

ISSN

Abbott, P. & Ruggeri, R., Modern African Wars (4): The Congo 1960–2002, Men-at-Arms Series 492, Osprey Publishing, London, 2014.

Amii Omara-Otunnu, Politics and the Military in Uganda 1890-1985, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1987.

; Honey, Martha (1983). War in Uganda: The Legacy of Idi Amin. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House. ISBN 978-9976-1-0056-3.

Avirgan, Tony

Cooper, Tom, Africa@War Volume 14: Great Lakes Conflagration – The Second Congo War, 1998–2003, Helion & Co Ltd, England, and Thirty Degrees South Publishers Pty Ltd, Johannesburg, 2013.

Cooper, Tom; Fontanellaz, Adrien (2015). Wars and Insurgencies of Uganda 1971–1994. : Helion & Company Limited. ISBN 978-1-910294-55-0.

Solihull

Oloya, Opiyo, Black Hawks Rising: The Story of AMISOM's Successful War Against Somali Insurgents 2007-2014, Helion & Co Ltd, Solihull, England, 2016. 978-1-910777-69-5

ISBN

Mudoola, Dan M. (1991). "Chapter 17: Institution-Building: The Case of the NRM and the military in Uganda 1986-89". In Hansen, Holger Bernt (ed.). Changing Uganda: The Dilemmas of Structural Adjustment and Revolutionary Change. James Currey. pp. 230–246.

Prunier, Gérard, Africa's World War: Congo, The Rwandan Genocide and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe, Oxford University Press, London, 2009. 978-0-19-975420-5

ISBN

Seftel, Adam, ed. (2010) [1st pub. 1994]. Uganda: The Bloodstained Pearl of Africa and Its Struggle for Peace. From the Pages of Drum. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. 978-9970-02-036-2.

ISBN

(February 2016). The Military Balance 2016. Vol. 116. Routlegde. ISBN 9781857438352.

International Institute for Strategic Studies

(February 2023). The Military Balance 2023. Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-032-50895-5.

International Institute for Strategic Studies

Africa Confidential, Volume 41 No 9. Deep rivalries in the Ugandan People's Defence Forces have been the main reason for the UPDF's failure to defeat the LRA since the late 1980s.

One way street

Conor Davis, "Border disorder" [Description of DRC entry 2022 in Operation "Shujaa"], , Vol. 59, No. 16, 20 April 2022, 24-29.

Jane's Defence Weekly

Max Delany, and Jeremy Binnie, 'Triple helicopter crash is major blow for Uganda, AMISOM,' , 22 August 2013, 10.

Jane's Defence Weekly

Rune Hjalmar Espeland, and Stina Petersen (2010). The Ugandan army and its war in the North. . 37(2): 193- 215

Forum for Development Studies

Lee, J. M. (1969), African Armies and Civil Order, /Chatto and Windus, 1969, 77, 105.

International Institute for Strategic Studies

Ngoga, Pascal. "Uganda: The National Resistance Army." African guerrillas (1998): 91–106.

Gerard Prunier, From Genocide to Continental War: the 'Congolese' Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa, Hurst & Co., London, 2009, 978-1-85065-523-7 (p. 88, 186, 197)

ISBN

"U.S. relies on contractors in Somalia conflict," , 10 August 2011

New York Times

Rocky Williams, "National defence reform and the African Union." Yearbook 2004: 231–249.

SIPRI

- history of Commandos, 2021.

Uganda People's Defence Force