Uganda Military - 2021

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES 

Military and security forces

Uganda People's Defense Force (UPDF): Land Forces, Air Forces, Marine Forces, Special Forces Command, Reserve Force (2021)

Military expenditures

2.1% of GDP (2019)

1.4% of GDP (2018)

1.5% of GDP (2017)

1.6% of GDP (2016)

1.4% of GDP (2015)

Military and security service personnel strengths

information varies; approximately 45-50,000 troops, including about 1,000-1,500 air and marine personnel (2021)

Military equipment inventories and acquisitions

the UPDF's inventory is mostly older Russian/Soviet-era equipment with a limited mix of more modern Russian- and Western-origin arms; since 2010, the leading suppliers of arms to the UPDF are Russia and Ukraine (2020)

Military deployments

6,200 Somalia (AMISOM); 620 Somalia (UNSOM); 250 Equatorial Guinea (Jan 2021)

Military service age and obligation

18-25 years of age for voluntary military duty (must be single, no children); 9-year service obligation (2019)

Military - note

the UPDF, which is constitutionally granted seats in parliament, is widely viewed as a key constituency for MUSEVENI; it has been used by MUSEVENI and the NRM to break up rallies, raid opposition offices, and surveil rival candidates; during the 2020 election cycle, senior UPDF officer said that the military would not obey a non-NRM political leader

the UPDF has conducted operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo against a Congo-based Ugandan rebel group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US State Department in March 2021 as the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (ISIS-DRC; see the Terrorist Group Appendix); beginning in 2012, the UPDF also led regional efforts to pursue the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a small, violent group of Ugandan origin that conducted widespread attacks against civilians in much of Central Africa; the UPDF withdrew from the mission in 2017 after declaring that the LRA no longer posed a security threat

Uganda intervened in the South Sudan civil war in 2013-2016 and UPDF forces have clashed with South Sudanese forces along the border as recently as 2020

NOTE: The information regarding Uganda on this page is re-published from the 2021 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Uganda 2021 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Uganda 2021 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.