Sudan fighting commands attention. Can US correct its course?

When fighting erupted in Sudan last month between the country’s armed forces and a powerful paramilitary group, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Vietnam, solidifying ties aimed at counterbalancing China’s growing dominance in Southeast Asia.

Suddenly Mr. Blinken’s press encounters were less about China and more about the safety of dozens of U.S. diplomats in Sudan and the fate of thousands of American citizens living there.

Then came questions about the potential for Sudan’s violence to expand into a full-blown civil war that could spill over into fragile neighboring countries and destabilize the entire Horn of Africa.

Once again, the U.S. aim to pivot to Asia and shift military and diplomatic resources to the Indo-Pacific region was being stymied by events threatening American interests in the greater Middle East.

And now, with violence deepening across much of Sudan and a wider regional war threatening, the United States must turn to humanitarian priorities as well as steps to discourage neighboring countries from feeding the fighting and becoming embroiled in the war themselves, regional analysts say.

“The U.S. has made a lot of mistakes in Sudan, not the least of which has been trusting the two generals who are now fighting each other to the death in a war that risks destroying the country,” says Cameron Hudson, a former director for African affairs on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.

“We need to focus first on humanitarian steps like facilitating corridors for getting civilians out” of intense fighting to safety and on “directing delivery and access to humanitarian assistance,” he says.

Moreover, the U.S. needs to “help build a wall around the country to prevent weapons and fighters from coming in,” says Mr. Hudson, now a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Africa program in Washington. “If we can keep the neighbors out of the fighting and cut off the flow of funding and arms to the two sides,” he adds, “then we can get back to thinking about a permanent peace.”

On Monday the United Nations declared Sudan at a “breaking point” as violence flared despite a cease-fire agreement. The country’s armed forces, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, resumed a bombing campaign against positions of the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti. The RSF leader ruled out talks until the bombing stops.

The U.S. has been deeply interested in Sudan for more than three decades. It declared the country a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993, and it labeled the scorched-earth campaign against rebels in the western province of Darfur in the early 2000s a genocide. It was elements of Hemedti’s RSF, known then as the Janjaweed, that carried out the brutal war in Darfur.

More recently the U.S. has tried – over a succession of coups and civilian-rule false starts – to balance its own security interests against often-stated American civic values: the promotion of democracy and buttressing of Sudan’s vibrant civil society.

Attempt at outsourcing

But in recent years the “Asia pivot” and a certain “Sudan fatigue” akin to a broader Middle East fatigue have diluted U.S. attention to Sudan, some regional analysts say, leading Washington to increasingly rely on partners and allies in the region to do more of the diplomatic heavy lifting.

Others say factors like a lack of continuity in U.S. policy and heavy turnover among the country’s Africa diplomats have led to “wishful thinking” in U.S. deliberations with Sudanese leaders – and most critically with the two military leaders dragging the country toward civil war.

“The U.S. under the Biden administration doesn’t have a coherent plan for dealing with Sudan and its significance in both the Horn of Africa and the Middle East,” says Jihad Mashamoun, a Sudanese researcher and analyst of Horn of Africa affairs based in London. “They have been focusing on China – and leaving it to their partners in the region, including the Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, to take on more.”

But what he calls an “outsourcing” of policy implementation is not serving the U.S. well, Dr. Mashamoun says, adding that the strategy is “showing its weaknesses with Sudan falling deeper into war.”

Echoing Mr. Hudson, Dr. Mashamoun says the U.S. is trying to cut the war short by denying the antagonists the resources to continue fighting indefinitely. “They are telling their allies, the Emirates and the Saudis, to cut off funding to the two sides as a way to help stop the fighting,” he says.

But that could be easier said than done, he adds, since these U.S. partners have developed ties of their own to the belligerent parties. Others concur, noting that few of Sudan’s neighbors place the same priority that the U.S. does on Sudan’s democratization and civil society.

“The neighbors and the countries just across the Red Sea have a particular vision of what should be happening in Sudan that does not necessarily align with ours,” says Susan Stigant, director of Africa Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington.

And, she notes, there are deep divides among Sudan’s neighbors: Egypt, with its own military ruler, strongly supports General Burhan, for example, while the UAE and Chad have close ties to Hemedti’s RSF.

“We hear the constant refrain, ‘African solutions to African problems,’” she adds. “But when you consider the conflicting interests of all those influencing Sudan, it seems clear there has to be something more than leaving it to Africans.”

Another factor is that in a period of waning U.S. influence in the region, other global powers have moved in – notably China and Russia.

Indeed, a significant piece of the Sudan puzzle is the growing influence of Russia as it seeks to extend its reach in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Russia has been seeking to build a naval base at Port Sudan on the Red Sea, a proposal strongly opposed by the U.S. At the same time, Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, which is playing a pivotal role in the war in Ukraine, is a significant player in Sudan’s resource industries, including gold mining, reportedly exporting billions of dollars in gold to Russia in recent years.

Picking a side

Over the initial weeks of Sudan’s war, the U.S. has sought to be pragmatic and evenhanded in its dealings with the dueling generals, seeking the assistance of both in facilitating humanitarian deliveries and civilian evacuations and in imploring both sides to end the fighting in the interest of the Sudanese people.

But U.S. officials now say privately that the rivalry and mutual hatred between the two generals have reached a point of no return, making any war-stopping negotiations very unlikely.

And that, says Mr. Hudson of CSIS, means the U.S. is going to have to pick a side. Moreover, he says the U.S. has no choice but to go with General Burhan and the country’s armed forces.

“Yes, there is a humanitarian imperative to try to freeze this thing, but the fact is we need the army to win,” Mr. Hudson says. “Because if they don’t, we’re faced with a version of the Janjaweed running the country.

“The armed forces are a morally bankrupt institution,” he adds, “so it tells you something if the prospect of an RSF victory is worse.”

Others say that no matter what course Sudan’s war takes, the U.S. must not lose sight of the country’s civil society, finding ways to sustain it so that it can play a key part in a postwar political transition.

“At the end of the day,” Dr. Mashamoun, the Sudanese researcher, says, regional interests including stability and security will be better served by making the Sudanese people’s aspirations the priority and “not the fighting military leaders.”

That focus on the Sudanese people should begin even now as war rages, some say.

“In any response on the humanitarian front, we need to find ways to support and build on the credibility and legitimacy of the Neighborhood Resistance Committees and other groups based at the community level,” says USIP’s Ms. Stigant.

“We don’t want to be giving the credit in any way to the generals, after the awful destruction they’ve caused with their war,” she adds. “Instead, we should find ways to leverage that assistance as a future investment in the democratic foundation the Sudanese people have laid for themselves.”