At the time of independence, Botswana had no armed forces. It was only after the Rhodesian and South African armies armies attacked the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army and Umkhonto we Sizwe bases respectively that the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) was formed in 1977. The President is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and appoints a defence council and the BDF currently consists of roughly 60,000 servicemen. In 2019, Botswana signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.