Kenya Defence Forces has dropped in the global fire index despite being the top spender on military equipment in the region. The study done in 2018 by Global Firepower ranked Kenya in position 85 out of 136 countries. This is a major drop from the prior number 77 in 2017 and position 63 in 2016.
The Kenya Defence Forces are the armed forces of the Republic of Kenya. The Kenya Army, Kenya Navy, and Kenya Air Force comprise the national Defence Forces. The current Kenya Defence Forces were established, and its composition laid out, in Article 241 of the 2010 Constitution of Kenya; the KDF is governed by the Kenya Defence Forces Act of 2012. The President of Kenya is the commander-in-chief of all the armed forces.
The military power is judged according to individual and collective factors when it comes to waging a prolonged campaign against another country.
This ranking does not necessarily consider the number of weapons that a country has but the diversity of the weapons.
Key consideration is the manpower available where countries with bigger populations rank higher due to the availability of personnel for support during war and industry.
According to the study, the country has a total of 29,150 military personnel with 24,150 active personnel and 5,000 reservists.
The Air Force hosts 17 fighter air crafts, 17 attack aircraft, 33 trainer aircraft and 69 helicopters.
The Army has 591 armored fighting vehicles, 76 combat tanks, 30 self-propelled guns and 25 towed artillery.
On the other hand, the Navy has 19 warships and 6 coastal patrol aircraft.
To operate the machinery and the vehicles, the military uses 84000 barrels of petroleum per day. (One barrel has 159 liters, which makes the daily consumption around 13.4 million tonnes per day).
Per day, the force covers about 161,000 km on land and 2,066 kilometers by rail.
KDF is tasked with guarding 536 km of coastline and 3,457 km of shared borders.
In Africa, Kenya is ranked number 10 behind Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
In the latest report, the United States, Russia, China and India maintained their positions as the world’s most powerful militaries.
Despite the significant drop in global ranking, Sipri military study showed that Kenya spends more than the combined budget of Ethiopia (Ksh 49 billion) and Uganda (Ksh 44 billion.)
This is despite Uganda having (45,000 personnel), twice the size of Kenya’s army (21,450 personnel) and Ethiopia commanding seven times the number with about 185,500 military personnel.
The military Ksh97.2 billion budget topples Tanzania’s military budget of Ksh59.8 billion.
Nairobi military budget accounts for 1.2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 4.5 percent of the total government spending.
