| dc.description.abstract | KDF’s entry into Somalia on October 2011 elicited a lot of interest at the local, sub-regional,
regional and international levels. This was because in the history of independent Kenya, a 48 year
period, the country had not gone to war. In fact the country was usually referred to as an island of
peace in an otherwise unstable sub-region. Except for KDF’s engagements in the Shifta
Campaign between 1963 and 1967, and also its involvement in United Nations Peace Keeping
Operations within the region and in other parts of the world, KDF had not engaged in war per se.
The study therefore seeks to establish whether KDF’s entry into Somalia was a reflection of
military diplomacy and if there is a relationship between military diplomacy and national
interests.
The study will rely on both primary and secondary sources of data. The study will therefore rely
on Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions to gather information from a selected
number of Key personnel in the Ministries of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs.
The study’s hypotheses are based on seeking to establish whether military diplomacy enhances or
does not enhance national interests. The hypotheses are therefore meant to establish if military
diplomacy has any impact on national interests.
The study brings to the fore the finding that military diplomacy enhances a country’s national
interests. The study indicates that KDF’s deployment to Somalia was in response to the threat to
Kenya’s national interests and its very survival. The study concludes that a regional and
multilateral practice of military diplomacy is a plausible approach to the mitigation of security
threats to a country’s national interests. | en_US |
