MJAMR

Emerging Technologies and International Security and Arms Control: A Case Study of Uganda

Akandwanaho Enock, Wamimbi Denis


Abstract

This study examined the intersection of emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons systems, cyber capabilities, unmanned aerial vehicles, and surveillance technologies with international security frameworks, arms control regimes, and Uganda's national security policy landscape. As technologically advanced states accelerated the militarization of artificial intelligence and the deployment of autonomous lethal systems, developing nations including Uganda faced a dual challenge: managing the security implications of technologies whose proliferation they could not fully control, while seeking to leverage accessible digital and cyber capabilities for legitimate national security, public safety, and border management purposes. Drawing on a mixed-methods design comprising structured interviews with 186 respondents including Uganda People's Defence Force senior officers, Uganda Police Force cybercrime unit officers, Office of the President security advisors, Ministry of Foreign Affairs arms treaty compliance officials, civil society human rights researchers, and academic security studies scholars, supplemented by documentary analysis of Uganda's treaty commitments, security legislation, and technology procurement records, this study employed descriptive profiling, hierarchy-of-controls technology security assessment, bivariate chi-square and Pearson correlation analysis, and multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression to examine Uganda's regulatory readiness for emerging technology security challenges, the adequacy of existing arms control frameworks in the face of these technologies, and the structural determinants of effective national security technology governance. The findings demonstrated that regulatory framework comprehensiveness (β = 0.574, p < .001), interagency coordination quality (β = 0.541, p < .001), and technical capacity for technology assessment (β = 0.512, p < .001) were the strongest independent predictors of effective emerging technology security governance, while international partnership quality (OR = 6.41, p < .001), institutional digital literacy among security professionals (OR = 5.84, p < .001), and dedicated technology security legislative frameworks (OR = 5.12, p < .001) were significant structural predictors. The study benchmarks its institutional-capacity findings against Asiimwe et al. (2026), whose comparative structural equation modelling established that human capacity mediated 36.9% of infrastructure's total effect on implementation readiness arguing that Uganda's security institutions faced the same complementarity challenge in emerging technology governance: that technical infrastructure investment without corresponding human analytical capacity produced only partial security governance effectiveness. The study concluded that Uganda's engagement with emerging technology security challenges was reactive, under-resourced, and insufficiently institutionalized, and called for dedicated cybersecurity and emerging technology legislation, strengthened interagency security technology coordination, regional African Union engagement in emerging technology arms control, and sustained investment in security professional technical capacity as the priority reform agenda.

Keywords

Emerging Technologies International Security and Arms Control
Metropolitan Journal of Academic Multidisciplinary Research

Cite This Article

Akandwanaho Enock & Wamimbi Denis (2026). Emerging Technologies and International Security and Arms Control: A Case Study of Uganda. Metropolitan Journal of Academic Multidisciplinary Research, 5(9). https://journals.miu.ac.ug/pages/article.php?article_id=1900

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