@Mo
Lately weve been under attack from all our neibours
Uganda Migingo
South Sudan some dry patch up there..i suspect has oil
Tanzania some islands down south
Somalia.. always
Ethiopia.. the Ogaden region raids..

in the military they say to live in peace always be prepared for war.

Its not about an arms drive, but an overhaul of the military equipment. And about time! Am for instance tired of seeing those old buffalo transports (za World War 2)!
Nobody is taking security matters for granted and even Tanzania has been quietly upgrading its fighter jets.

Kenya last did a major re-armament in 1978/7 when we bought the Northrop F-5 jet fighters and over 30 attack MD 500 choppers from the States for our Air Calvary. Ok, so there were some Vickers tanks from Brito, Panhard armored personnel carriers & Puma helicopters (the one that carries Kibs) from France/Brito.
So our equipment is old. Plus if u look at the neighbouring states we have the lowest number of troops. So clearly from a strategic/tactical point of view we need to make up for the low troop numbers with equipment/strategy/technology. This is why we bought abt 15 F-5 jet fighters and some WZ-9 choppers from China (wachana na magazeti eti junk choppers that can't fly I saw them flying on Good Friday near Embakasi). Eh, the T-72 tanks...is another storo.

I get bored by pips who say ati we are in peacetime but as Migingo,Somalia,etc shows a nation can get into war in a very short times and u won't have time to re-equip, even mobilisation of reserves takes time. Even Ug not have sent its UPDF to stay in our territory for long during PEV juu they knew the consequences.!

We are the largest economy in the region and I say let's protect our sweat! Currently the Kenya Airforce has air superiority in the region but the neighbours are strengthening too what with the Tanzanians even acquiring 3rd generational fighters such as the 6 Mig -29 Fulcrum (equated to the US F-18 Hornet)!
While at it can we equip the Navy with somthing better than the Nyayo class boats?
And also we are too passive, our stance is a defensive as opposed to an offensive armed forces. But we need to develop an offensive stance such that if our intelligence gets credible reports Al-Shabbab is intending to bomb say Garissa and they are actually amassing at the border, we can launch a pre-emptive air-strike that also acts as a deterrent in future.

Military power acts as a deterrent. It was ON the basis of the principle of mutually assured destruction (MAD) between Nato and the Warsaw pact that maintained global peace all these years.
my 2 cents.

intelligentsia.... kuuliza sio ujinga,where do you get your info..on everything except women..thats one area i can bet you are single..lol...back to my question.

@Mlefu,
The world wide web. Just know where to look.

For example, http://wapedia.mobi/en/Kenya_Air_Force#1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Kenya

Happy hunting

@mlefu...interest interest interest & curiousity curiousity curiousity! of cos the www helps but u have to have the interest. at least for us military buffs we no longer hv to buy Jane's Defence and other military mags nowadays! So read widely and interact with diff professionals - and of cos walevi (they jua everything) tihiii.
I lived near an airbase & by my early teens I could tell all the planes of KAF just by their engine sounds & whenever the huge black American planes (must have been the C-130 Hercules) came visiting i could instantly tell it was a foreign aircraft and would dash to see it land. In Mombasa it was a pleasure seeing the U.S Chinook choppers (the ones with 2 horizontal blades)- a great workhouse for a visiting destroyer.
So great has been my interest that by early 2000s I climbed up a ramp & stood at the cockpit of a KAF Northrop Grumman F-5 fighter jet and thereafter entered the belly of the Buffalo turbo-prop and also the executive Dash-8 jet & witnessed a thriling Puma chopper demo - at MAB.
So when 3 weeks ago I heard different chopper sounds I instantly recognised them as Kenya's latest choppers, the Z-9WA choppers.

@ mahegoat - I have visited the sites above.
I highly doubt the Scottish bulldog (used to be a small white & red plane pips used to call flying doctor) is still in use,must hv been phased out of KAF at the same time as the Dornier Skyservant - a terribly noisy light transport plane that was actually a crop-sprayer sijui how it ever made it ways to the KAF. Also wiki says the choppers are Harbin Z-9 but they are actually Z-9WA and only 2 countries in the world operate them: China and Kenya.
Note pia wiki is not 100% reliable, can be edited even by yourself and in this era of deliberate disinformation...

@wa-bush..you are right.the major avenues for corruption world over are mostly the Defence, Telecoms and Infrastructure sectors because of the huge amts involved.

But on the 2nd statement you could be painting with a very broad brush.