Uganda

Uganda has a roughly one-in-three chance of direct involvement in significant armed conflict within the next three years, most plausibly through sustained cross-border operations and retaliatory militant violence linked to eastern DRC rather than interstate war.

Most likely: heightened internal security posture after the 2026 election, with protests and repression but contained geographically and organizationally. External risk remains concentrated on the DRC border, with continued joint operations and intermittent ADF-linked attacks. A single mass-casualty incident in Kampala or western Uganda is the main trigger for a sharper, more sustained cross-border campaign.

Over five years, risk tracks eastern DRC trajectories and Uganda’s willingness to sustain forward deployments. If DRC fragmentation persists and armed groups retain sanctuary, Uganda will face recurring incentives for deeper operations and higher retaliation risk. A durable regional security arrangement or improved DRC stabilization would reduce risk; prolonged governance tightening and sanctions pressure could raise internal volatility but still not imply civil war absent security-force fragmentation.

Threat drivers The dominant conflict pathway remains the Great Lakes borderland. Uganda faces persistent armed-group threats tied to eastern DRC, including ADF-linked attacks and the logic of forward defense through joint or unilateral operations near/inside DRC. This raises the chance of mission creep, casualties, and tit-for-tat escalation with non-state actors and potentially with other state-backed forces operating in the same space. Border districts also show episodic localized violence and security incidents, consistent with a chronic low-level insurgent/terrorism risk that can spike.

Domestic politics add volatility but are a secondary pathway to “significant armed conflict.” The 2026 election cycle and post-election repression increase the probability of protests, targeted violence, and localized lethal clashes. However, these dynamics more often produce episodic crackdowns than sustained, organized armed rebellion capable of contesting the state nationwide.

Resilience and systemic firebreaks Uganda’s coercive apparatus remains cohesive and experienced, with demonstrated capacity for rapid deployment, intelligence-led disruption, and containment of challengers in core areas. The state’s incentives generally favor bounded, deniable, or time-limited external operations rather than open-ended war, given trade dependence, aid and partner relationships, and reputational/diplomatic costs. Regional mechanisms (EAC/IGAD/AU channels and bilateral military-to-military contacts) provide imperfect but real deconfliction options.

Net assessment New reporting reinforces the baseline: the most credible risk is sustained cross-border conflict dynamics (DRC/ADF) plus episodic high-casualty terrorism, not a conventional interstate war. Post-election repression raises internal instability indicators but does not yet constitute a structural shift toward civil war. Overall risk edges upward to moderate because external drivers are persistent and can intensify quickly, while domestic legitimacy stress can reduce political bandwidth for calibrated external operations.

Key indicators Expanded UPDF force posture near DRC; rising high-casualty attacks in western Uganda/Kampala; prolonged operations in DRC with higher losses; breakdown of deconfliction with regional actors; emergence of organized armed cells inside Uganda beyond isolated incidents; sustained elite fragmentation within security services.