Outsourced Violence: RSF, Libya and Wagner

[John Ashworth]

Attached please find a new report from Small Arms Survey entitled "A
History of Outsourced Violence: The Rise of the Rapid Support Forces,
Libyan National Army, and Wagner Group" by John Lechner, December
2025.

"In the war against the Sudanese Armed Forces, the Rapid Support
Forces have relied on external backing and regional partnerships that
extend well beyond Sudan’s borders. While these relationships have
developed within different local and historical contexts, the ways in
which armed actors mobilise support, resources, and legitimacy reveal
important behavioural patterns that lend themselves to a comparative
look.

A History of Outsourced Violence: The Rise of the Rapid Support
Forces, Libyan National Army, and Wagner Group—a new Situation Update
from the Small Arms Survey’s Human Security Baseline Assessment for
Sudan and South Sudan (HSBA) project—analyses the history of
outsourced violence in Sudan, and how the resurgence of mercenary
economies and transactional alliances in Sudan, Chad, Libya, and the
Central African Republic challenges peacebuilding in the region.

Key findings

- The rise of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan has coincided
with the growing power of militias and other paramilitary groups in
the region. The links between RSF, the Libyan National Army (LNA), the
Wagner Group, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) represent a
convergence of local, regional, and global trends in the outsourcing
of warfare.
- While the power of RSF, LNA, and other paramilitary groups rivals
that of some nation states, their rhetoric is anchored in
state-centric notions of power and legitimacy, not the overturning of
the state. This rhetoric is in contrast to non-state armed movements,
such as the Islamic State (IS).
- Militia rule and war economies in Sudan’s peripheries have fostered
a market for mercenaries, deepening regional fragility and calling
into question statist analytical frameworks."

https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/resource/outsourced-violence-rise-of-rsf-libyan-national-army-and-wagner

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John Ashworth

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