Strategic Argument and Areas of Debate
Sudan’s internal power struggle has fundamentally mutated into a highly lucrative transnational proxy war, where competing foreign state and non-state actors exploit domestic institutional collapse to secure Red Sea maritime access and dominant control over illicit gold supply chains. This dynamic generates a profound strategic dilemma: the foreign military and financial lifelines required to sustain the warring factions simultaneously dismantle the state apparatus necessary for long-term regional stabilisation across the Horn of Africa.
Executive Summary
The devastating civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces is being artificially prolonged by international state and non-state actors vying for control over Sudan’s natural resources and geopolitical assets. External powers such as the United Arab Emirates and Russia, alongside Libyan militia leader Khalifa Haftar, provide critical military and financial support to the paramilitary groups in exchange for laundered gold and strategic footholds along the Red Sea corridor. While the African Union remains largely absent from conflict resolution, Türkiye is attempting to leverage its diplomatic influence to mediate between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Resolving the crisis requires dismantling the illicit transnational economic networks that continually rearm the belligerents and incentivise perpetual instability.
Analytical Framework and Key Drivers
Resource Extraction as Conflict Subsidy: The illicit extraction and smuggling of gold, primarily through networks connected to the United Arab Emirates and the Wagner Group, provides the indispensable financial capital required by the Rapid Support Forces to sustain prolonged military operations post-2023.
Geopolitical Access to the Red Sea: International actors leverage the domestic power vacuum to establish enduring maritime and military presence along the coast, transforming a local power struggle into a broader competition for control over vital global trade arteries.
Militia Patronage and Transnational Logistics: Warlords such as Khalifa Haftar utilise controlled infrastructure, notably the Libyan National Army airbases, to facilitate international arms transfers, deepening the interdependency between North African and Sahelian instability.
Diplomatic Vacuum and Alternative Mediation: The institutional passivity of the African Union has created a diplomatic void, prompting Türkiye to deploy its recent mediation experience from the Horn of Africa to attempt a negotiated settlement between the warring factions by January 2025.
Strategic Assessment & Empirical Findings
- The humanitarian cost of the conflict has reached catastrophic levels, resulting in over 61,000 fatalities and displacing approximately 8 million people across domestic and international borders.
- As the 16th largest gold producer worldwide in 2023, Sudan’s illicit economy thrives, with an estimated 50% to 80% of its domestic gold production currently smuggled out of the country.
- The United Arab Emirates acts as the primary node for resource laundering, having imported 39 tons of gold from Sudan valued at over $2 billion in 2022 alone.
- The Rapid Support Forces have significantly enhanced their operational capabilities by capturing major resource hubs, particularly the highly lucrative Jebel Amer mining site in the Darfur region.
- Russia is expanding its direct military footprint across the Sahel by deploying forces to revitalise the Maaten Al Sarra base in December 2024, aiming to project power into neighbouring states.
Geopolitical Trajectories & Policy Risks
- The entrenched alliance between the Rapid Support Forces, the United Arab Emirates, and the Wagner Group generates a severe dependency on illicit resource extraction, ensuring that military escalation remains economically more viable than democratic transition.
- Russia’s expansion of military infrastructure in Libya, specifically its operations at the Maaten Al Sarra border installation, risks permanently destabilising the Sahel region by creating an unchecked logistical corridor for proxy warfare.
- The prolonged marginalisation of the African Union leaves a critical vacuum in institutional conflict resolution, rendering the Sudanese state highly vulnerable to fragmentation driven by unilateral foreign interventions.
Critical Policy Questions & Responses
Question 1 How does the illicit international gold trade structurally prevent a negotiated resolution to the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces?
Answer: The systematic smuggling of vast quantities of gold, particularly through the United Arab Emirates, provides the Rapid Support Forces with untraceable financial liquidity that insulates them from traditional diplomatic pressure or economic sanctions. Because this transnational resource extraction directly funds weapons procurement and mercenary salaries, the paramilitary leadership has a continuous economic incentive to prioritise battlefield gains over political compromise.
Question 2 What strategic role does Khalifa Haftar’s infrastructure in eastern Libya play in sustaining the operational capabilities of Sudanese paramilitary networks?
Answer: Khalifa Haftar leverages the territories and airbases governed by the Libyan National Army, such as Al Khadim and Al Jufra, to function as a vital logistical bridge connecting Russian private military suppliers with the Rapid Support Forces. This corridor enables the unhindered airdropping of sophisticated weaponry and logistical supplies, binding the security architecture of eastern Libya inextricably to the prolonged violence in Sudan.
Question 3 Why has Russia adopted a dual-track engagement strategy involving both the legitimate Sudanese government and non-state militia factions?
Answer: By simultaneously courting the Sudanese Armed Forces and deploying the Wagner Group to arm the Rapid Support Forces, the Russian Federation ensures it will maintain geopolitical leverage regardless of which faction ultimately seizes control of the state. This calculated ambiguity is designed to guarantee long-term Russian access to lucrative African gold reserves and to secure highly prized naval basing rights along the strategic Red Sea coastline.
Question 4 How does the diplomatic intervention of Türkiye seek to reshape the geopolitical alignments currently sustaining the Sudanese civil war?
Answer: Capitalising on the institutional passivity of the African Union, Türkiye has initiated mediation efforts aimed at establishing direct dialogue between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and foreign backers such as the United Arab Emirates. By projecting its recent diplomatic successes from the broader Horn of Africa into the Sudanese theatre, Ankara aims to de-escalate the proxy dynamics and establish itself as the indispensable geopolitical arbiter of regional security.
Key Actors and Systemic Dynamics
- United Arab Emirates → Enables → Rapid Support Forces
- Rapid Support Forces → Competes with → Sudanese Armed Forces
- Wagner Group → Supports → Rapid Support Forces
- Khalifa Haftar → Coordinates with → Wagner Group
- Libyan National Army → Accelerates → Transnational Arms Smuggling
- Russia → Shapes → Sahel Region Security
- Türkiye → Responds to → Diplomatic Vacuum
- African Union → Undermines → Regional Conflict Resolution
- Sudanese Armed Forces → Depends on → Egypt
- Gold Smuggling Networks → Strengthens → Rapid Support Forces
