Today, containment of country’s persistent security threats is traded-off with focus on foreign policy, Geo-economics, and military planning. New regimes pursuit of new national security focus often stunt when persistent threats reassert and subsequently overshadow the new thesis. National Security policy subordinates other interests to those of the nation, and perhaps most importantly, it encompasses decisions and actions deemed imperative to protect domestic core values from external threats. In Kenya, the domestic political environment will change after the new administration officially takes over power on 13th September 2022.
What is the touchstone for Kenya’s National Security concept and how will it interlink with the overall international situation? Diplomatic etiquette responds to distribution of power in the international system while domestic economic and socio-political stature overwhelmingly influence the diplomatic power, wherein ‘Foreign policy is what you do, diplomacy is how you do it’ in this era of interdependence. Regionally, Nairobi needs a robust representation. The recent past demonstrated how political and strategic realities affect all countries and regions.
Domestic political & economic weather determine how to trade-off external and domestic threats. International politics determine the diplomatic conditions through which a nation can become stronger or weaker whereby power to influence or coerce through soft-power or military power is expended. Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the Country’s Military Intelligence understand the region and world order and architecture that has been in existent in international security have significantly fractured in recent past making threats more complex and variable. They will advise the new President how to navigate through this safely and wisely.
National Security Policy From Intelligence Service Prism
Kenya’s national security policy seeks to protect the states interests. The new regime under Dr. Ruto will look through two sets of issues: the technical and international and domestic political issues, and military-geopolitical capability and nations intent issues. The mainstay of peaceful measures lies in the opposite plan of a thorough understanding and of a conscious yielding of many legitimate rights so as to gain the most essential ends. National Defense as such becomes a need even without the threat hence all technical dimensions of such as material sources of national power that span geopolitical, economic, technological and other aspects, including the domestic and international linkages are part of the policy and strategy.
Kenya intelligence chief Major General Phillip Wachira Kameru has pursued a National Security Strategy that keeps the country safe from both immediate and long-term external and domestic threats while ensuring the country adopts a cooperative national security model to align with international security systems and needs. The model presents a more efficiently adjusted national security structure that fits in well with global security structure wherein the principle of armed security is no-longer a predominant factor and wider implementation of common security measures is imperative due to the increasing interdependence amongst states calls for more cooperation than aggression.
