Get rid of the army.

Have you ever thought of the thousands of men the United States government employs simply to babysit their stockpiles of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles? All those millions of man hours every year - and billions of dollars to boot to prepare for a world war that every one agrees will be lost by all sides if it ever comes. How about our own tiny arsenal of bombs and missiles for a war with...who? The United States can afford it. Can we any longer?

We have a land army, an air force, a navy and special forces. They have proven themselves in the field of battle in Somalia. They are reckoned to be the most disciplined forces when sent out on Blue Hat duty for the United Nations. When they are deployed at home - Mt Elgon, Kapedo - they are, at first, received with ululation, which soon after turn to screams of fear and pain. What is it about the Kenya Defence Forces when it is deployed out there that disappears when the politicians deploy them at home and want them to quell some insurrection?

What do they do when they are in the barracks? Drill? How much does it cost us to have a standing army that fights so infrequently? These are questions that we are not supposed to ask. All those millions of rounds of ammunition that decay - yes, they do decay - because they cannot be used fast enough. If we were an expansionary power, it would make sense for us to keep an army the size that we do. But we are not, the lunatic ideas of a "strategic depth" in Somalia notwithstanding. You only build up a professional army, train it and equip it with modern fighting weapons if the intent is to invade your neighbour or an enemy state far away. But do you seriously see Kenya attacking Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia, Somaliland, Puntland, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Seychelles or Djibouti any time soon? If you do, then maybe our warmongering days are ahead of us.

An army is an anachronism in the twenty-first century. Maybe China, Russia, India and the United States need million-man standing armies - they do have enemies who are willing to attack them from afar. Kenya does not and cannot have such ambitions when it can hardly provide piped water or free education to its burgeoning youth demographic. The billions we secretly and unaccountably expend on the army would be best served by buying the infrastructure that the tens of millions of Kenyans need - roads, schools, electricity, water, hospitals, houses.

Those who would throw their arms up in horror at leaving the territory of Kenya helpless should be mollified by a smaller and more specialised border security force, like the Swiss have. The balance of the professional, all-volunteer army that we would need for war could be trained through national service, such as is proposed by the revamped National Youth Service. Re-training could be rotated through the various units on a two-year or three-year time-cycle. Then we wouldn't need to maintain a standing army that did nothing most of the time. It would also remove the army from being considered for peace-enforcement at home with the almost-certain attendant allegations of human rights abuses. The savings made from this downsizing could go to the police, who frankly need it more, or more social goals such as water for all, free primary healthcare or free basic education. After all, the border security force would be where it is needed: the damn border that seems to let in all sorts of troublemakers.

It is time to re-think this idea of a standing army. The allegations of waste and corruption engendered by the opacity of its administration should make us all sit up and pay attention. The days when there seemed to be a bottomless pit of cash have come and gone. We are in straitened economic times. Millions of youth are unemployed or underemployed. Resources that could be channeled to solve this ever-intractable problem are locked up behind a veil of secrecy and vested interests. This nation needs to grapple with the iniquity of carrying on a tradition that is no longer justifiable. It is time to scrap the Kenya Defence Forces.