The conflict in Sudan is not a spontaneous eruption of ethnic grievance but a systemic failure of a dual-military state structure. The current war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) represents the violent resolution of a "security sector duopoly" where two distinct military entities with overlapping economic interests and divergent command structures could no longer coexist within the same borders. This is a competition for total sovereign control, characterized by a zero-sum logic that prioritizes institutional survival over state stability.
The Architecture of Dual Military Power
The fundamental instability of the Sudanese state predates the April 2023 outbreak of hostilities. For over a decade, the country operated under a bifurcated military apparatus. On one side stands the SAF, a traditional state military with a long history of political dominance and deep roots in the country’s bureaucracy and heavy industry. On the other is the RSF, an agile, paramilitary force that evolved from the Janjaweed militias of Darfur into a semi-autonomous corporate-military hybrid.
This structural anomaly created two specific friction points:
- Command Integration Bottleneck: The primary catalyst for the kinetic conflict was the disagreement over the timeline and hierarchy of integrating the RSF into the SAF. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (SAF) demanded a rapid two-year integration to consolidate command, while General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti (RSF), sought a ten-year horizon to preserve his independent power base.
- Economic Resource Competition: Sudan’s economy functions as a collection of military-owned enterprises. The SAF controls traditional sectors like telecommunications, construction, and agriculture. The RSF built a parallel empire centered on gold mining and the provision of mercenary services abroad. The transition toward a civilian-led government threatened both entities, but the immediate threat was the SAF's attempt to subordinate the RSF's financial autonomy.
Operational Mechanics of the Power Struggle
The war is defined by a mismatch in military doctrine, which results in a high-attrition environment for the civilian population. The SAF utilizes a conventional "combined arms" approach, relying on heavy artillery and air superiority. However, their ground forces often lack the mobility required for urban warfare.
The RSF employs "insurgent-style" tactics, prioritizing speed, light-vehicle mobility (technicals), and the seizure of high-density urban infrastructure. By embedding themselves in residential areas and utilizing hospitals or schools as logistical hubs, the RSF effectively negates the SAF’s aerial advantage. This tactical choice forces the SAF to either concede territory or engage in destructive bombardment of their own capital, Khartoum.
The Urban Siege Dynamics
In Khartoum and the Darfur region, the RSF has implemented a strategy of systematic displacement. By seizing water treatment plants, power stations, and bakeries, the RSF utilizes basic survival needs as a form of non-kinetic weaponry. This creates a "forced migration" loop:
- Service Disruption: Occupying critical infrastructure renders neighborhoods uninhabitable.
- Asset Liquidation: Widespread looting of private residences serves as the primary pay mechanism for RSF fighters, replacing a centralized salary system with a predatory "war-booty" model.
- Security Vacuum: The collapse of police and judicial systems allows for the re-emergence of localized ethnic militias, further complicating the map of belligerents.
The Darfur Conflict Multiplier
While the fight for Khartoum is a struggle for the seat of government, the renewed violence in Darfur follows a different logic. In the western provinces, the RSF has leveraged its historical tribal affiliations to conduct a campaign of ethnic cleansing against non-Arab groups, such as the Masalit.
This secondary theater functions through a Tripartite Instability Model:
- Identity Polarization: The mobilization of "Arab" vs. "African" identities serves as a recruitment tool for the RSF, providing a steady stream of motivated, low-cost infantry.
- Land Tenure Disputes: The displacement of sedentary farming communities allows for the permanent redistribution of land to nomadic RSF-aligned groups, creating a demographic shift that will be difficult to reverse through diplomacy.
- Cross-border Contagion: Darfur’s proximity to Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) creates a porous ecosystem where weapons and fighters flow freely, fueled by regional actors and private military contractors.
The Logistics of Sustained Attrition
The endurance of both parties is sustained by external support networks and the monetization of the state’s remaining assets. Despite international sanctions, the RSF maintains a robust logistical pipeline for fuel and small arms through the Libyan border and via cargo flights into neighboring territories.
The SAF relies on its established state-to-state relationships, procuring drones and munitions from regional powers interested in maintaining the status quo of a traditional military government. This external interference creates a "stalemate equilibrium" where neither side possesses the decisive force to achieve total victory, but both possess enough resources to prevent defeat.
The Economic Cost Function
The macro-economic collapse of Sudan acts as a feedback loop for the war. With the central bank’s functions crippled and the Sudanese pound in free-fall, the formal economy has been replaced by a "conflict economy."
- Revenue Divergence: State revenues are no longer directed toward public services but are sequestered for the procurement of fuel and munitions.
- Agricultural Failure: The Al-Gezira scheme, once the breadbasket of the country, has been severely disrupted by RSF incursions. This has moved Sudan from a state of food insecurity to a trajectory of mass famine.
- Human Capital Flight: The exodus of the professional middle class—doctors, engineers, and educators—ensures that even if a ceasefire were reached today, the institutional capacity for recovery has been decimated.
The Failure of External Mediation
Diplomatic efforts, notably the Jeddah talks, have consistently failed because they treat the SAF and RSF as legitimate political actors rather than competing military-economic cartels. The logic of the mediators assumes that both sides want a functional state to govern. In reality, both leaders view the destruction of their rival as a prerequisite for personal and institutional survival.
Current mediation frameworks suffer from three structural flaws:
- Lack of Enforcement: Sanctions have targeted individuals but have not severed the complex financial networks and front companies that fund the war.
- Narrow Stakeholder Engagement: By focusing primarily on the two generals, mediators have sidelined the civilian "Resistance Committees" and political blocs that led the 2019 revolution.
- Regional Misalignment: The divergent interests of neighboring states—some backing the SAF for stability and others backing the RSF for resource access—turn Sudan into a proxy theater.
Strategic Forecast and the Pivot to Partition
The current trajectory indicates that a total military victory for either side is statistically unlikely in the short-to-medium term. Instead, Sudan is moving toward a de facto partition. The SAF is consolidating control in the east and north, centered around Port Sudan, which now serves as the administrative capital. The RSF is solidifying its grip on Khartoum and much of the Darfur and Kordofan regions.
This "Libyanization" of Sudan—where two rival governments claim legitimacy over different territories—represents the most probable outcome. To prevent a total state collapse, the international community must shift from seeking a "unified transition" to a policy of "aggressive containment" and "civilian-centric protection."
The immediate strategic priority must be the establishment of demilitarized "safe zones" around critical infrastructure, monitored by a neutral force, to decouple the survival of the population from the military fortunes of the belligerents. Without a shift from high-level diplomacy to ground-level humanitarian engineering, the structural dissolution of Sudan will result in a permanent vacuum of power at the heart of the African continent, exporting instability for decades.
