During World War II more than 300,000 Moroccan troops (including goumier auxiliaries) served with the Free French forces in North Africa, Italy, France and Austria.

The two world conflicts saw Moroccan units earning the nickname of "Todesschwalben" (death swallows) by German soldiers as they showed particular toughness on the battlefield.

[10] 14,000 Moroccan personnel from the French Army and 10,000 from the Spanish Armed Forces transferred into the newly formed armed forces, this number was augmented by approximately 5,000 former guerrillas from the "Army of Liberation", About 2,000 French officers and NCOs remained in Morocco on short term contracts until the training programs at the military academies of St-Cyr, Toledo and Dar al Bayda produced sufficient numbers of Moroccan commissioned officers.

Between 1975 and 1991, the Moroccan Armed Forces fought a 16-year war against the POLISARIO, an Algerian backed rebel national liberation movement seeking the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco.

[17] From the mid-1980s on, Morocco largely managed to keep POLISARIO troops at bay by building a huge sand wall, staffed by an army roughly the same size as the entire Sahrawi population, enclosing the Southern Provinces within it.

The Moroccan army destroyed all the posts created by the Polisario and won decisively the majority of battles, but artillery strikes and sniping attacks by the guerrillas continued, and Morocco was economically and politically strained by the war.

In the 21st century, the Royal Moroccan Air Force started a progressive modernization program of its aging fleet and its technical and operational capacities.

Given Morocco's significant coastline (2,952 km) and strategic position overseeing the strait of Gibraltar, it (with Spain and the United Kingdom) is deeply involved in the security of this important international waterway.

This legislation text attaches the Gendarmerie to the Royal Moroccan Army, then constituting a military force in its structure, administration and command forms.

Disagreements between the United Nations and the Spanish government led to Spain´s withdrawal from the mission, leaving the Moroccans in charge of a much larger area than what was initially designed.

Morocco has deployed 6 observers, one mechanised infantry battalion and one field hospital[21] to participate in the United Nations Security Council efforts to monitor the peace process of the Second Congo War.