Tracing the roots of the technological capacity building of the Uganda people's defence forces

Abstract

This paper seeks to trace the roots of the technological capacity building of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF). Technology has always been used to produce improved tools and research in sciences has enabled the development of new technology for both military and civilian use. The argument being made is that the wars waged throughout several historical eras and nations have endeavored to develop new and more advanced technologies to achieve a military advantage. Mankind has progressed successively from fighting with bows and arrows through rifles, guns, tanks, aircraft and missiles to digitalization, computers, and information technologies. Scientific and technological advances though slow and gradual in previous centuries, were dramatic in the 20th century with trench warfare being introduced as a result of the Civil War, hence a development that swayed away from the destructive capacity of the fighting men in frontal assaults.1 The development of iron-clad ships in the 1860s, the machine gun in the 1890s, the manned aircraft and the tank in the 1920s-1930s, the aircraft carrier and radar in the 1930s-1940s, and nuclear weapons in the 1940s-1950s are some of the important signposts in the evolution of military technologies.2 Now in the advent of the 21st century, the study conducted by (Billing, 2021) indicated that the increased advancement and convergence in fields such as robotics, information technology and artificial intelligence will continue to have a revolutionary impact on the battlefield in the near future