Kenya is a constitutional republic with a parliamentary system of government, and a former British colony. While Kenya is not a significant defence spender compared to other countries, its sizeable defence budget – US$ 2.2 billion in 2023/2024 – amounted to 1.6% of its total GDP, roughly on par with Italy and Germany as a percentage of GDP. Kenya’s military, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), received about half of the total security budget.
Kenya is significant node of western ‘war on terror’ interests in Africa, which in part explains its well-funded and overzealous military. The Kenyan government prioritises defence spending largely due to security concerns over its shared border with Somalia and that country’s ever-present insecurity and challenges with Islamist groups including Al Shabaab. Kenya has seen a significant number of terrorism attacks, including from domestic groups targeting Kenyan interests, and from internationally-focused groups attacking Western government interests, most notable of which was the 1998 Al Qaeda US embassy bombing. These threats and attacks have increased significantly since Kenya invaded Somalia in October 2011, ostensibly following cross-border attacks by Al Shabaab, but also to further Kenyan government interests in its north east provinces. In September 2013, Al Shabaab affiliates murdered Kenyans and foreigners shopping at Westgate Mall. The Kenyan government’s response was increasing surveillance and human rights abuses against its ethnic Somali and non-Somali Kenyan Muslim populations, and successfully push the Parliament to grant extensive, unaccountable powers to its security services.
Kenya receives vast amounts of financing, assistance and diplomatic cover for counterterrorism from the UK and US, which look the other way when Kenyan security services act extrajudicially to torture, abduct and kill. Kenya has suffered an epidemic of state-enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. According to Amnesty International, in 2020 the country accounted for two-thirds of all recorded extrajudicial killings on the African continent. State security services are responsible for many of these: a minimum of 250 disappearances and over 1,097 killings of ordinary Kenyans between 2007 and 2025.
Kenyan authorities have largely escaped accountability for these crimes. This has precedent. In 2007, when the incumbent president won re-election despite opposition claims of fraud, organised gangs of primarily ethnic Kikuyus systematically attacked non-Kikuyu Kenyans perceived as supporting the opposition candidate’s unsuccessful bid. The scale of killings and sexual violence, including gang rapes and forced circumcisions, engulfed the nation. The International Criminal Court began investigating key government officials’ alleged roles in the violence, notably Uhuru Kenyatta who won a presidential election in 2013 while facing crimes against humanity charges.
Militarised repression by Kenya’s state security services is the norm, and the Kenyan government is widely perceived to be increasing repression of the media, free speech, the legal profession and peaceful protests. This is particularly evident in its treatment of the “Gen Z” protests which began in 2024 – dozens of lawyers, activists and others have been abducted, tortured and in some cases disappeared. Surveillance is rife.
Kenya’s arms suppliers
Kenya is the world’s 88th largest arms importer between 2015 and 2024, according to SIPRI data. Italy was overwhelmingly its main arms supplier in that period (34%), followed by the US (26%), China (12%), with Serbia, Turkey, Jordan, the UAE, Germany, France, and Montenegro totalling another 10.3%.
Italy and Kenya
Italy has a growing foreign policy interest in East Africa, having been the former colonial power in Somalia and having held a military presence in the region during the second World War. Italy’s interest in part relates to its desire to reduce the number of irregular migrants arriving in Italy from sub-Saharan Africa. In 2025, the Kenyan Minister of Defence hosted his Italian counterpart in Nairobi to discuss defence relations and “cooperation in training, [and] equipment acquisition.” Italy also owns the Luigi Broglio Space Centre in Malindi, an Italian Space Agency Spaceport, which hosts ground station equipment for communication with space systems “used in specific missions.” Collaboration in developing space technology, drone manufacturing, and AI-related defence capabilities was also on the agenda; a Defence Cooperation Agreement between the countries was in the works.
Notable recent Italian arms deals include the 2020 purchase by Kenya of three Leonardo C-27J Spartan multi-role military transport aircraft, and the 2018 supply by Italy of three Leonardo AW139 helicopters.
China and Kenya
China’s economic interests in east Africa are extensive. China has long been the biggest player in the global market for critical minerals and metals, for example. In 2024, it was the biggest infrastructure investor on the continent, committing US$ 3.37 billion in foreign direct investment that year, a 10-fold increase compared to twenty years prior, according to the China-Africa Research Initiative. Kenya particularly has one of Africa’s largest portfolios of Chinese-financed infrastructure projects.
China’s defence investment in Kenya has followed the trend. The share of weaponry in Kenya’s arsenal coming from China grew from less than 3 percent in 1990 to 50 percent in 2018, according to analysis by the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies. Kenya allows Chinese law enforcement to conduct operations in Kenya, mostly targeting Chinese nationals, and Kenyan officers receive training in China. The US in particular is concerned over what it suspects is the Chinese government’s attempts to establish a military presence in Kenya and neighbouring Djibouti.
Notable recent Chinese arms acquisitions include the 2022 donation of unspecified military vehicles and engineering by China to Kenya. Kenya police were using VN-4 Armoured personnel carriers produced by Chinese company Norinco in 2016, and the company was planning to set up a branch in Kenya. Chinese defence giant AVIC also has invested US$ 155 million with another company in property in Kenya.
The US and Kenya
As noted above, the US is intimately involved with the Kenyan military as part of its global “war on terror.” The US maintains military presence in at least 4 locations in Kenya, most notably at the KDF’s Camp Simba, near Malindi by the Somali border. The US’ Central Intelligence Agency is highly active running paramilitary operations as well.
The US has been selling arms to Kenya for decades. For example, in 1976 it made its “biggest single American arms deal in Africa” – for 12 Northrop F‐5 jet fighter planes – to Kenya. Between 2020 and 2024, the US accorded US$ 10.35 million in foreign military sales to Kenya. Naturally, US arms companies benefit greatly. Sales of US equipment in the past ten years have included the 2017 approved sale worth US$ 253 million of Rafael MD 530F weaponized aircraft Arnold Defense M260 rocket launchers, General Dynamics M151 and M274 rockets and ammunition, the 2018 donation of Bell attack helicopters, and the 2024 donation of UH-1 ‘Huey’ and McDonnell Douglas MD 500 Defender helicopters and 150 armoured vehicles. In 2025, the US approved a US$ 418 million contract for Air Tractor AT- 802L converted crop dusters, two AT-504 trainer aircraft and some weapons to Kenya. Kenya’s current military air fleet contains many US company-made planes, including the Northrop F-5EM. American drone manufacturers are also supplying Kenya with reconnaissance drones.
The US also looks out for its own interests in Kenya. In July 2024, the US approved a US$ 10 million contract for the building of a 10,000-foot runway capable of supporting Northrop F-5 and Boeing C-17 operations at Manda Bay, to support its military operations in-country.
The UK and Kenya
Kenya won independence following a bloody insurgency against British colonisers, who admitted defeat in 1960, leaving behind a police architecture which continues today. Ever since, the UK has been a close defence partner of Kenya, particularly following the advent of the US “war on terror” in which the UK is a key ally. In 2021, the two countries renewed their Defence Cooperation Agreement.
Though it is not currently a major arms supplier to Kenya, since 2015 UK companies have obtained licenses to export to it goods worth UK£ 31 million, the largest category of which is UK£ 22 million for small arms. Notable British exporters to Kenya include BAE Systems, Hall & Watts Defence Optics, and J & D Wilkie Ltd (military textiles).
This may soon change. In late 2025, Kenya committed to purchasing UK£ 70 million in military equipment from the UK. More significantly, the UK government has made sizeable donations to Kenya’s security services, like the 2018 MOD donation of six remotely operated vehicles, and bomb disposal gear. For example, the UK fully funded and equipped a bigger anti-terrorism police (ATPU) headquarters in Nairobi; the ATPU had the UK’s “tacit approval” for killings, according to former Kenyan vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka speaking to Declassified. British troops are stationed in Kenya at the British Army Training Unit in Kenya; they have allegedly committed environmental destruction and sexual abuse and murder, according to a Kenyan parliamentary inquiry. British and Kenyan troops engage in joint military exercises, most recently the Haraka Storm Bravo exercise in 2024, where troops tested out 3D printed attack drones.
Kenya’s defence industry and exports
Kenya has a thriving domestic security industry but very little manufacturing of military goods beyond basic ammunition and small arms. While SIPRI records no major conventional arms exports by Kenya from the period between 2015 and 2024, the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) notes that in 2023, Kenya exported US$ 150,000 worth of weapons, primarily to the UAE, possibly produced by a state-owned company, the Kenya Ordnance Factories Corporation. The Directorate of National Security Industries, a Kenyan military agency, exists to promote defence manufacturing but appears to have little to show for it so far. In December 2025, its head was in Egypt to deepen bilateral defence industry cooperation between the countries.
Foreign companies including Italian arms giant Leonardo have offices in Kenya, and some companies, like BAE Systems have teamed up with local firms to provide support to military and humanitarian missions.
Kenya and arms fairs
Kenya does not host a specific defence and arms fair, but defence and security products feature heavily at the annual Nairobi International Trade Fair. Kenya regularly sends delegations to the UK’s major arms fairs, Security and Policing and DSEI, and further afield, to Milipol Qatar and EDEX in Egypt.
