The Sudan crisis: A power struggle by design
The crisis in Sudan is entering its fifth week and the end is not yet in sight.
Neither the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) nor the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) managed to win decisive victories in the capital Khartoum.
But their inability to overpower each other isn’t entirely surprising. Instead, it is largely a by-product of President Omar al-Bashir’s longstanding strategy to rule in a country that has witnessed 16 failed and successful coup attempts since independence.
Al-Bashir, who himself came to power in a military coup in 1989, needed to control his own army without making it too weak to maintain his grip on power. A sizable paramilitary force would reduce the risk of military coups because it shifts executive power away from a regular military to add a layer of protection against foreseeable mutinies.
It is extremely risky for one state to have two sizable, quasi-independent armed forces and will only work if these armed forces perform different functions to oppose each other.
The RSF took on the SAF
Figures on the size of the Sudanese army and the RSF vary widely. The SAF is estimated at about 200,000 active employees compared to the RSF, where estimates range from 70,000 to 150,000.
With the constitutional task of maintaining internal order and contributing to the country’s development, the SAF is the coercive backbone of the Sudanese political system. Under al-Bashir, military spending accounted for up to 29 percent of Sudanese government spending.
Al-Bashir ruled Sudan for 30 years until the military overthrew him in April 2019 after months of popular protests. After months of bickering, the new ruling generals agreed in August 2019 to share power with civilians representing the protest movement during a pre-election transition period.
But in October 2021, Sudan’s fragile democratization process came to an abrupt end when the army’s leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF commander, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, seized total power in a coup. However, cracks soon appeared as pro-democracy protests continued and the thorny issue of integrating the RSF into the regular army remained unresolved.
Cameron Hudson, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that in terms of their equipment and training, “[the] SAF is a conventional African Army in that their order of battle is in the area of heavy weapons and armor. They have tanks, armored personnel carriers and they have an air force that gives them air superiority.”
According to the SIPRI Arms Transfers DatabaseIn the past decade, Belarus, China, Russia and Ukraine have been the SAF’s main suppliers of aircraft, missiles and armored vehicles. A United Nations arms embargo imposed in 2004 in response to violence in Sudan’s Darfur region had disrupted supply chains for the SAF’s weapons.
“They struggled to keep their equipment running because they couldn’t get spare parts. Sudan is also a punishing environment for advanced weapons because of the sand and heat. Equipment and maintenance were a challenge [for the SAF]said Hudson.
The RSF, on the other hand, is a non-conscript force formally established ten years ago as an extension of and counterweight to the SAF, emerging from the so-called Janjaweed militias under the auspices of al-Bashir to push for secession in Darfur.
In 2015, the RSF was officially incorporated into the coercive apparatus of the state under the command of Hemedti, subject only to al-Bashir and his National Intelligence and Security Service.
Like the Janjaweed, members of the RSF were recruited by Hemedti from Arab tribes in Darfur. This makes the RSF more cohesive culturally, ethnically and religiously than the SAF’s conscript corps.
The RSF also has its own revenue streams; private businesses owned by Hemedti and members of his family, including gold mining, ranching and infrastructure businesses.
Unlike the SAF, the main objective of the Janjaweed was targeted armed campaigns against non-Arabs in remote areas. The RSF retained the Janjaweed’s tactical arrangement as a mobile guerrilla and counterinsurgency force. Domestically, it has previously fought in Kordofan, the Blue Nile State and Khartoum in 2019; outside Sudan, RSF members have fought against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In terms of weapons, the RSF uses a number of government-supplied weapons, although it has also been known to seize weapons and vehicles belonging to other militia groups.
“They are much lighter and use lightly armored jeeps like Thatchers or Toyota Hilux vehicles with 50 caliber machine guns mounted on them,” Hudson said. “The RSF was allowed to break up and sustain itself because it played a role that the SAF did not want to play. The SAF has often mobilized militias across the country to do the dirty work and hand-to-hand combat that they were unwilling or unable to do.”
Hemedti’s political ambitions
As long as the RSF specialized in armed campaigns outside Khartoum, it could grow without directly challenging the SAF’s traditional political hegemony.
But the alliance between al-Burhan and Hemedti during the 2019 and 2021 coups disrupted the fragile coexistence of the two forces. In the end, analysts say Hemedti’s political ambitions drew the RSF to the center of political power, entering the political realm of the SAF.
With al-Burhan unable to rebuild a political base that would entrench his regime, the RSF’s original role as mutiny insurance turned into a serious coup risk. The differences in the internal organization, equipment and specialization of the SAF and the RSF kept both forces in check until major disagreements arose in March over a planned security sector reform to restructure the military. The planned merger of the RSF into the regular army would have eliminated the paramilitary force as a substantial coup risk, while absorbing firepower and range in the country’s periphery.
“Usually there is a risk of power struggles after coups. But coup plotters would find ways to mitigate them before launching a coup,” said researcher Jonathan Powell of the University of Central Florida.
“New incumbents appease potential rivals early on, redistribute ministries or assign individuals to political posts far from the political capital where they cannot cause trouble,” Powell explains.
When fighting breaks out within the military establishment, it is usually short-lived and ends in a quick and clear winner. “It is bizarre that a regime would allow an armed force like the RSF to become a serious rival in the political capital,” Powell said.
As the sticky issue of RSF integration flared up in the weeks leading up to the fighting, Powell noted that “it may be that al-Burhan felt more secure in his position than he was.
“I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Al-Burhan’s inaction was to avoid the clashes [between SAF and RSF] that we are seeing now,” he added.
The urban environment of Khartoum is a problem for both SAF and RSF
With fighting now in its second month, analysts say Khartoum’s urban environment poses a problem for both the RSF and SAF due to their combat histories and specializations.
“[The SAF is] not known to be very mobile on the ground, or even accurate with respect to their air force,” Hudson said.
The RSF, on the other hand, has never had the same training as the Army in defending fixed positions, holding territory or supporting attacks.
“The military can use long-range artillery and fighter jets to defend their positions. Up close, they have tanks and heavy armor,” Hudson added. “The RSF is not positioned to hold territory and defend positions because it is configured as a guerrilla force that strikes and retreats quickly.”
Many RSF recruits are also unfamiliar with the operational environment in the capital.
“These are people from the peripheral regions of the country with very little knowledge of the streets and neighborhoods in Khartoum. The SAF has an advantage there because the SAF knows Khartoum. At the same time, the SAF is not mobile; it can’t defend its positions reasonably well and it won’t be able to chase the RSF across town,” Hudson said.
Yet neither force seems to adapt its combat tactics to its environment.
Hudson pointed out that “the RSF uses the same tactics we know from the Janjaweed: they loot, pillage, and pillage in neighborhoods”. With no fixed supply lines in Khartoum and their headquarters destroyed, Hudson said RSF fighters are “going into people’s homes to steal food, water, supplies and [them]”.
Meanwhile, early in the crisis, reports surfaced that the Russian Wagner Group was providing tactical support to the RSF. Marcel Plichta, a research fellow at the Center for Global Law and Governance, said that “there are claims of using Wagner aircraft or Wagner-operated airfields to deliver materials to the RSF, particularly portable surface-to-air missiles. From a military perspective, this niche capability is very valuable to the RSF because al-Burhan controls the regular military air force and the RSF lacks strong anti-aircraft capabilities.”
But Plichta warned that Wagner is still not a decisive force in this battle.
“The number of contractors currently operating in Sudan is small compared to the tens of thousands of RSF and SAF employees. The founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, benefits from being portrayed as more influential than it is. It is important not to overestimate the power and influence of this group, just as it is important not to downplay the harm it is doing to civilians,” he said.
A way out of the conflict requires a decisive tactical victory
Because the SAF and RSF are designed to be complementary rather than competing forces within one state, the conflict in Khartoum has brought both into a stalemate, observers say. At the same time, the rift between al-Burhan and Hemedti has weakened state power.
The unclear situation on the ground deters political actors from intervening, adding another blow to the already faltering democratic process.
“The 2021 coup made it very clear that powerful figures in the security services were unwilling to allow democratization without serious preservation of their powers and the loot they take from the system,” Powell said.
Hudson predicted that as long as neither RSF nor SAF has the upper hand, there will be no chance of negotiations.
“I’m afraid neither side wants to end the fighting,” he said.
“They have agreed to every ceasefire, although they have not carried it out. What could create a real opening for dialogue is if one side is on the verge of winning. If one side gains a tactical advantage – for example if the RSF is driven out of Khartoum – that could create a real opportunity for them to talk.”