By Kebeli Demba Nyima
The Gambia Armed Forces have been presented to the public as an institution undergoing reform, modernisation, and professionalisation. Official communiqués highlight battalion exercises, donor-funded training programmes, and operations such as Storm Keneba as evidence of progress. These initiatives, while highly visible, remain overwhelmingly symbolic. They project the image of readiness without demonstrating autonomous operational capability. The GAF high command promotes these manoeuvres as proof of preparedness, but preparedness for what, when the essential duties of deterrence, including presidential protection, remain permanently assigned to foreign contingents? The critical question is whether the Gambian army is preparing to assume its constitutional mandate, or merely staging drills that imitate the appearance of capability without delivering the substance of it. A republic that cannot secure its own sovereignty finances an army that stands in formation but not in function.
The primary duty of any modern military is to protect the territorial integrity of the state from foreign and domestic threats. That a nation of fewer than three million people, facing no credible external war threat, remains unable to secure its territory without foreign troops diminishes both military credibility and national dignity. Defence partnerships are normal; permanent outsourcing of constitutional duties is not. A military that cannot sustain operations independently, define a strategic defence posture, or assume core security responsibilities signals dependency rather than strategic cooperation.
The economic cost of this misalignment is substantial. A swelling defence payroll, expanding battalion size, and recurring training budgets drain scarce public resources, yet measurable returns on investment remain marginal. Recruitment, salaries, and exercises are financed domestically, while the actual labour of deterrence is delivered externally. This reflects the defence economics principle of moral hazard, where financial burdens are absorbed by the state, but strategic utility is transferred abroad. The consequence is a defence sector that consumes resources without being required to justify that consumption.
The continued deployment of Senegalese and Nigerian soldiers highlights an inversion of strategic logic. Nigeria has fought Boko Haram for more than a decade, yet mass abductions, instability, and insurgent violence continue. Senegal has engaged MFDC rebels in Casamance since 1982, a low-intensity conflict that has endured for more than forty years. From a security standpoint, both states require troop reinforcement more urgently than a peaceful Gambia does. A nation at war deploys troops abroad; a nation at peace receives them at home. The inversion of this principle diminishes national standing and reduces defence reform to performance rather than progress.
This paradox of dependency is not new. Under President Jawara, reliance on Senegalese troops after the 1981 coup attempt and the embedding of Nigerian officers within the Gambian National Army weakened the development of an independent, homegrown professional force. Gambian soldiers were sidelined from core security functions, producing institutional resentment, civilian mistrust, and a widening legitimacy gap. These tensions contributed to the 1994 coup, when junior officers led by Yahya Jammeh removed Jawara in a bloodless takeover, fuelled by frustration over poor pay, perceived subordination to foreign officers, and the belief that Gambian soldiers were denied dignity within their own defence establishment. Dependency had eroded legitimacy, and legitimacy lost is authority lost.
Security sector reform under President Barrow has followed a familiar pattern: frequent training cycles, VIP demonstration days, polished press releases, and celebratory speeches by senior officers crafted more for public optics than strategic transformation. Even governments operating in war-dense environments insist that foreign deployments must be temporary and paired with defined exit strategies. President Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the reduction of American military presence in Iraq reaffirmed a longstanding defence principle: foreign troops can stabilise in the short term, but they must never substitute indefinitely for national security institutions.
Storm Keneba has been branded as the showcase of Gambian military reform, yet it remains strategically incomplete without a clearly defined end state. A meaningful end state would prove that the Gambian military can sustain field operations, plan independently, and execute constitutional defence responsibilities without permanent foreign substitution. Instead, Storm Keneba looks like a cycle of theatre, tents pitched, cameras flashing, tents folded, and a return to barracks, only for the sequence to restart with the next press release.
If Storm Keneba is to be more than a policy stunt, then the logical next step must be transition. Yet neither the GAF Commander nor the Commander in Chief have acknowledged any plan for the withdrawal or drawdown of foreign troops on Gambian soil. That silence is the loudest signal of all.
We hope that, just as President Trump marked Christmas with a gift to Nigeria by authorising U.S. air strikes against insurgent targets, President Barrow will use the New Year to announce a clear timeline for the full withdrawal of foreign forces from Gambian soil. Only such a declaration would prove that Storm Keneba was conceived not as a publicity stunt but as an actual strategic policy shift.
