The Rapid Support Forces and Sudan’s War of Visions

This analysis paper posits that the identity-based conflict in Sudan is not merely ethnic, it is transactional, shaped by broken social contracts around resource access, political dignity, and institutional neglect. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), emerging from these same dynamics, are undeniably a product of governance collapse. But they also represent a catalyst, however fraught, for reimagining governance itself. With the RSF leader, Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti” now invoking inclusion, justice, and equality in tones reminiscent of John Garang’s “New Sudan” vision, this paper’s central provocation lies in the question: Is the RSF seeking merely to install new players in an old system or to change the rules, and the field, on which governance is played in Sudan?