[2] At its formation, Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe (retired and former Vice President of the Republic of Botswana (now deceased)) became its first Commander.

Unusually for an African military force, and chiefly attributable to its being founded after Botswana's independence, the Botswana Ground Force was not formed from colonial units formed by a colonising power, but rather were formed from the remains of the Botswana Mounted Police Unit, previously known as the Bechuanaland Mounted Police, a unit of the British South Africa Police.

[3] The contemporary roles of the Defence Force are broad for a conventional military, suggesting that the government of Botswana and the BDF subscribe to a wide view of ‘security’ and consider the Defence Force an appropriate agency for attaining much of it, an issue that has been discussed even in the BDF's own internal media.

The various units of the Botswana Ground Force are as follows: The BGF and the Botswana Air Force maintain the same rank system, which is loosely based on British or Commonwealth rank systems.

In 2016 the Ministry of Defence of Botswana ordered 45 Piranha 8×8 armoured vehicles made by General Dynamics Switzerland.