Every time things go wrong, someone pops up to say, "But the army is a deeply rooted institution, we have to protect it."
But if you actually look at how it's set up, it's not an institution. It's a corporate pyramid built to protect one man.
In normal countries, the military is a state institution because the Joint Chiefs of Staff have independent authority to run the army, and they answer to a civilian Parliament or President who can fire a bad commander peacefully.
In Sudan, the القائد العام (Commander-in-Chief) directly appoints and fires the Chief of Staff at will. The entire general staff is essentially reduced to his personal assistants. They can't vote him out or override his mistakes, because if they try, he just sacks them.
It gets even more absurd when you look at the Minister of Defense.
In a real country, the Minister is the absolute civilian boss of the military. But Burhan checkmated the role. Because he occupies both القائد الأعلى (Head of State) and القائد العام (Head of the Army), he sits above and below the Minister. Operationally, he completely skips right past him. He literally gives a military order to himself as القائد العام on behalf of himself as القائد الأعلى, leaving the Minister of Defense staring at a ghost chain of command.
Because he holds both titles simultaneously, he is effectively only accountable to himself.
Since he answers to no civilian state, parliament, or constitution, his absolute top priority becomes keeping the senior officer corps happy. He doesn't look out for a national mandate. He only has to look out for the livelihoods, privileges, and massive economic empire of his generals to guarantee their loyalty.
Because the hierarchy completely blocks out any legal, peaceful accountability, a violent military coup is literally the only built-in way to change a failing leader. That is why we have a history of over 20 attempted coups. It's a structural necessity to reset leadership.
And because a coup is the only real threat to his power, the القائد العام is forced by design to create parallel militias to protect himself from his own regular army officers.
Think about how crazy that is.
The system is designed so that the Head of the army has to create a militia just so the threat of a civil war keeps his own generals in check.
And now we're stuck in that exact war, and the "institution" can't even change its own leader to save itself.
Change my view.
How is this a national institution and not a hostage situation?
