Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (French: Forces armées de la république démocratique du Congo, FARDC) is the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The FARDC was rebuilt patchily as part of the peace process which followed the end of the Second Congo War, in July 2003.

The majority of FARDC members are land forces, but it also has a small air force and an even smaller navy. In 2010–2011, the three services may have numbered between 144,000 and 159,000 personnel. In addition, there is a presidential force called the Republican Guard, but it and the Congolese National Police (PNC) are not part of the Armed Forces.

The government in the capital city Kinshasa, the United Nations, the European Union, and bilateral partners which include Angola, South Africa, and Belgium attempted to create a viable force with the ability to provide the Democratic Republic of Congo with stability and security. However, this process has been hampered by corruption, inadequate donor coordination, and competition between donors. The various military units now grouped under the FARDC banner are some of the most unstable in Africa after years of war and underfunding.

The FARDC has been a mix of the former Zairian armed forces, integrated rebel groups from the Second Congo War, and militias that became part of it more recently. Since 2014, it has been organized under three geographic combatant commands known as defense zones, one each covering the western, south-central, and eastern DRC.

To assist post-war governments, the United Nations has had the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (now called MONUSCO), which until 2023 had a strength of over 16,000 peacekeepers in the country. Its principal tasks were to provide security in key areas, such as the South Kivu and North Kivu in the east, and to assist the government in reconstruction. Foreign rebel groups are also in the Congo, as they have been for most of the last half-century. The most important is the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), against which Laurent Nkunda's troops were fighting, but other smaller groups such as the anti-Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army are also present.

The legal standing of the FARDC was laid down in the Transitional Constitution, articles 118 and 188. This was then superseded by provisions in the 2006 Constitution, articles 187 to 192. Law 04/023 of 12 November 2004 establishes the General Organisation of Defence and the Armed Forces. In mid-2010, the Congolese Parliament was debating a new defence law, provisionally designated Organic Law 130.