Military of Ivory Coast

Military Of Ivory Coast

The Republican Forces of Côte d'Ivoire (French: Force Republicaines de Cote d'Ivoire; "FRCI") is the current name of the armed forces of Ivory Coast and serve the Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire (FNCI), the political coalition that triumphed in the Second Ivorian Civil War. The FRCI were formerly known as the Armed Forces of the New Forces (FAFN). As of September 2011, the government is attempting to form what is called the Forces Armées Nationales de Côte d'Ivoire (FANCI), which aims to merge 5,000 former rebels of the FRCI with 30,000 veterans of the former regular army (Forces de défense et de sécurité – FDS).

The country became independent on 7 August 1960. Ivory Coast had no military until more than a year after independence, one was finally organized and strengthened with French assistance. Ivoirian members of the French Troupes de Marine who had been born in Ivory Coast were transferred to Abidjan in October 1961 to start establishing the armed forces. In 1962 the total strength of the armed forces was about 6,500, about 4,000 being conscripts doing their military service. The authors of the U.S. Army's Area Handbook series said at the time that '..the Army and Gendarmery (sic) were effective forces in being, but the Navy and Air Force were token forces primarily for prestige and with little actual defense value.'

In 2011, the FRCI, with assistance from French forces and the UN's mission ONUCI, defeated the army of the former government of Ivory Coast. While the pre-2011 structure of the armed forces was well documented, the structure of the FRCI armed forces since the victory of the FNCI is unclear.

French forces and the Opération des Nations Unies en Côte d'Ivoire are a significant military factor in the country as of late 2011 (see International Forces below).