How colonial heritage influences our security approach, military ranks

As Kenya celebrates another Madaraka Day, every year since June 1, 1963, serious people spend quality time agonizing over national security. They confront and adjust to changing realities, even when the “core” interest remains unchanging. They make it their business to know and try to do something about it.

They engage in reality checks, external and internal, and note that tradition makes national security perception land oriented. Kenya’s geographical location and the volatility of its neighbours shape this perception. The most dangerous  neighbour at independence was the Republic of Somalia that had become independent in 1960 as per United Nations mandate and had irredentist dreams.

This led to a quasi-war with Kenya, termed the Shifta War, because neither country wanted to acknowledge the existence of real war. After training at Sandhurst and other advanced military schools, young Kenyan officers earned their first stripes fighting in the Shifta War.

Ethiopia went through internal political and ideological challenges which produced refugees, of the political and economic type, crossing borders into Kenya in more places than Moyale. Similarly Sudan, next to Ethiopia, generated refugees escaping civil war that had started in 1955, slightly before Sudan’s 1956 independence.

That civil war properly ended in 2011 when Kenya helped to usher in South Sudan as a new country. This, however, did not end the sense of insecurity arising from the land-based fragility of the new state in the north. Uganda, to the west of Kenya, attained independence in 1962 and bothered Kenya with its ideological gyrations and bad habit of generating neighbourly hostility. It still irritates Kenya over the Migingo/Mijingo Island in Lake Victoria.

Tanzania, which shares Lake Victoria with Uganda and Kenya, acted as Kenya’s counter weight in East Africa and developed land border frictions.

At one time in the 1970s, the two countries closed borders over ideological harambee versus ujamaa disputes. Still fretting over border crossings, neither pays as much attention to the sea challenges. Second, besides challenges from the neighbours, internal forces influenced Kenya’s defense orientation towards land; two of them stand out. First, the beginnings of the army, or what became the Kings African Rifles (KAR), was as an outfit to implement the colonial policy of “effective occupation” to subjugate all “natives” to colonial order. Second, at independence, there was the question of marrying the antagonists, KAR and Mau Mau fighters into one post-colonial military. It did not work.

Instead, in the midst of the Cold War, the government found a hybrid solution to cater for the youth coming from forests, detention camps, and primary schools. It created the National Youth Service, NYS, to diffuse potential youth upheavals.

The leadership comprised former colonial official Geoffrey William Griffin, with vast experience handling difficult boys, and Waruhiu Itote, a prominent Mau Mau Warrior. The NYS also had Cold War dimensions. To stop China from sponsoring the NYS and make Jaramogi Oginga Odinga look good, the United States offered sponsorship. This made Odinga’s political rival, Tom Mboya, look good.

Independent Kenya started air force and the navy and treated them like poor siblings of Big Brother army. A small mutiny at Lanet Barracks reinforced the need for continued British military logic and presence, even as each service tried to “Africanise”.

The initial commanders, all British, determined which Africans moved up. In the army, this meant fast tracking “natives” holding specially created colonial intermediate NCO ranks of effendis into commissioned officers. Joseph Ndolo and Jackson Mulinge were among them and dominated Kenya’s post-colonial military. Thereafter, the army recruited cadet officers straight from high schools.

Two African heads of the military, Ndolo and Daudi Tonje, influenced post-colonial Kenya’s orientation and advanced notions of united service command. Ndolo, the first African military head, reportedly forced air force and naval ranks to conform to army ranks. As a result, Kenya does not have such air force or naval ranks as admirals, commodores, or group captains. The army orientation was thus imprinted in the national security outlook.

Tonje created the National Defence College and service rotational principle which gave other services a chance to lead the military. The NDC was meant to produce long term national security strategic thinkers. Subsequently, the air force has produced one chief and the navy has had two.

Prof Munene teaches History and International Relations at USIU