ABSTRACT
The military ruptured in December 2013 amid heightened tensions among South Sudan's fractious elite, instigating a protracted civil war. In August 2015, the government reluctantly signed the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS) with the splintering SPLM/A–IO. The R-ARCSS reshaped rather than resolved the conflict, with the government exploiting divisions in the SPLM/A–IO to encourage defections to the military (renamed the South Sudan People's Defence Forces), while counter-insurgency operations against smaller rebel groups continued. Meanwhile, soaring localised violence (often organised by political and military players) has followed the flagging implementation of the agreement, as South Sudan continues its tumultuous transition towards a post-oil economy and instability deters the investment needed to establish oilfields to offset declining production.
