Service in the colonial military could often act as a politicizing force, leading African soldiers in colonial empires to join peaceful and violent independence movements alike. The late British Empire’s colonial administrators were acutely aware of the threat posed by their own African servicemen and, to even maintain their colonial army, colonial officials permitted special privileges, imposed surveillance, and allowed ‘Africanizing’ reforms in the colonial military. Yet, in its waning years, the Empire continued to turn to the King’s African Rifles (KAR), a regiment recruited from the indigenous populations of Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, and Nyasaland, to suppress anticolonial unrest. Following World War II, colonial authorities deployed KAR battalions in high-profile rebellions (termed Emergencies) in Malaya and Kenya, as well as in a range of internal security missions across East Africa. This project carefully examines the colonial authorities' management of the KAR from 1945 to 1964, when the former colonies of East Africa gained their independence. By examining the changing roles, missions, and reforms of this period, my project suggests that by prioritizing the regiment’s counterinsurgency and internal security role over meaningful reform, British authorities ensured short-term effectiveness of the KAR but left the army unprepared for the political demands of decolonization, forcing a belated and largely unstable process of ‘Africanisation.’ This oversight demonstrates the lack of British foresight in conceiving of independence, suggesting that decolonization in East Africa was firmly a process driven by African demands rather than colonial concessions.