Is the UPDF  modernising? 

President Museveni recently ordered Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) to recruit 2,000 graduates from across the country.
This was revealed by his son and Land Forces Commander of the UPDF, Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

“As commander Land Forces of UPDF and on the instructions of the Commander-in-Chief, I declare that we need 2,000 graduates in the next recruitment. We shall ensure they are the right people for the job. They will serve our great country just like we did. God bless Uganda!” Gen Muhoozi tweeted weekend.

In 2016, during a recruitment exercise which started on October 17, hundreds of youth turned up at Masaka Recreation Ground for recruitment into the UPDF.

Only males who completed Senior Four in 2014 and 2015 were eligible, according to Col JK Mukasa who, at the time, was the head of the recruitment exercise in the area.
In the two recruitment drives, 2016 and 2021, we see a divergence in the UPDF’s focus. 

Back in 2016, UPDF focused on planned and executed operations to the smallest detail (detailed command) while this year there seems to be a tilt towards macro control (mission command).
To explain further, UPDF has a total strength of approximately 40,000–50,000 soldiers. 

It was noted, in 2016, that an outsize number of these soldiers were commissioned officers (second lieutenant and officer cadet upwards) as opposed to “other ranks” (warrant officer class 1 downwards).
So the UPDF was considered top-heavy, hence the need to recruit O-Level holders who would populate non-commissioned ranks towards a synergy between command and operations. 

As Gen Muhoozi recruits more graduates, then, he reverses the UPDF’s 2016 goose-step towards an army of doers in favour of 2021’s glorified desk officers.  

Gen Muhoozi probably knows what he is doing in view of a 248-page book he authored entitled, Battles of the Ugandan Resistance: A Tradition of Manoeuvre. 
This book, besides being widely ignored, reputedly grew out of a thesis written in fulfilment of a one-year course at the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. 

There is nothing irregular in this as the book Why England Slept was the published version of a thesis written by US president John F. Kennedy in his senior year at Harvard College.  Beyond this, UPDF is changing with respect to its “will to fight”. 

This “will” is the single most important factor in war. It represents the essentially human nature of warfare. 
The National Resistance Army (NRA) recognised this and so placed a premium on the software of military tactics over the hardware of their weaponry. 
However, this has changed.
The art of command in battle has evolved from the traditional role of the fighting officer. 

In the days UPDF was still NRA, fighting officers such as Salim Saleh, Pecos Kutesa, Geoffrey Muheesi, Chefe Ali, Rueben Ikondere, Elly Tumwine and their ilk exemplified tactical leadership by personally joining the thick of battle. 
Today it is the junior ranks, not the graduates, who are designated to play the role of these famous NRA fighters. 

Essentially, they are cannon fodder in view of the fact that graduates are notoriously conflict-averse and thus derisively called “ice cream” soldiers due to their suitability to the gilded cage of plum appointments as against the horrors of war. 

We are hereby witnessing the rise of the “strategic corporal”; this implies the growing battlefield responsibilities of soldiers of a junior rank. 
This shift implies two things. One, the UPDF is “modernising”. 

Two, the UPDF will become, after President Museveni’s gone, an incubator for trouble because it is majorly, pun unintended, officers who stage coups.

Mr Matogo is a professional copywriter  
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