Uganda vs. South Sudan
Military
| Uganda | South Sudan | |
|---|---|---|
| Military branches | Uganda People's Defense Force (UPDF): Land Forces, Air Forces, Marine Forces, Special Forces Command, Reserve Force (2021) | South Sudan People's Defence Force (SSPDF): Ground Force (includes Presidential Guard), Air Force, Air Defense Forces (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) | 18 is the legal minimum age for compulsory and voluntary military service; the Government of South Sudan signed agreements in March 2012 and August 2015 that included the demobilization of all child soldiers within the armed forces and opposition, but the recruitment of child soldiers by the warring parties continues; as of July 2019, UNICEF estimated that more than 19,000 child soldiers had been used in the country's civil war since it began in December 2013 (2019) |
| Military expenditures - percent of GDP | 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) | 3.5% of GDP (2019 est.) 3.7% of GDP (2018 est.) 2.8% of GDP (2017 est.) 4.6% of GDP (2016 est.) 10.6% of GDP (2015 est.) |
| 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 | the South Sudan People's Defense Force (SSPDF), formerly the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), was founded as a guerrilla movement against the Sudanese Government in 1983 and participated in the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005); the Juba Declaration that followed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 unified the SPLA and the South Sudan Defense Forces (SSDF), the second-largest rebel militia remaining from the civil war, under the SPLA name; in 2017, the SPLA was renamed the South Sudan Defense Forces (SSDF) and in September 2018 was renamed again as the SSPDF under the September 2018 peace agreement, all armed groups in South Sudan were to assemble at designated sites where fighters could be either disarmed and demobilized, or integrated into unified military and police forces; the unified forces were then to be retrained and deployed prior to the formation of a national unity government; all fighters were ordered to these sites in July 2019; some progress toward merging the various armed forces into a national army has been made; for example, in May 2020, South Sudan announced that it was graduating some unified forces at various training centers across the country, and in June the SSPDF incorporated some senior officers from the main opposition force, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement Army - in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO) into its rank structure; nevertheless, overall progress has been slow, and as of early 2021 armed clashes continued to occur between government forces and armed militant groups in several states the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has operated in the country since 2011 with the objectives of consolidating peace and security and helping establish conditions for the successful economic and political development of South Sudan; UNMISS had more than 19,000 personnel, including about 14,000 troops, deployed in the country as of March 2021 United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) has operated in the disputed Abyei region along the border between Sudan and South Sudan since 2011; UNISFA's mission includes ensuring security, protecting civilians, strengthening the capacity of the Abyei Police Service, de-mining, monitoring/verifying the redeployment of armed forces from the area, and facilitating the flow of humanitarian aid; as of July 2021, UNISFA had some 3,800 personnel deployed |
| Military and security service personnel strengths | information varies; approximately 45-50,000 troops, including about 1,000-1,500 air and marine personnel (2021) | the South Sudan People's Defense Force (SSPDF) has an estimated 150-200,000 active personnel, mostly ground forces with small contingents of air and riverine forces (2021) note - some active SSPDF personnel may be militia |
| 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) | the SSPDF inventory is primarily of Soviet origin; from 2010 to 2015, Russia and the United Arab Emirates were the leading suppliers of arms and equipment; South Sudan has been under a UN arms embargo since 2018 (2020) |
Source: CIA Factbook
