Sudan Conflict Foreshadows a New Era of Endless Wars

Ce qu’il faut retenir

Since April 2023 Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces have fought a brutal contest for power. A roadmap unveiled on 12 September by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States promised a ninety-day humanitarian pause, a lasting ceasefire and a civilian-led transition. The plan remains ink on paper as battles rage from Darfur to the Nile.

Global stakes of Sudan’s battlefield

Khartoum’s skyline of shattered ministries symbolises more than a national implosion. The conflict has become a laboratory for twenty-first-century warfare in which drones, social-media mobilisation and foreign logistics decide momentum. Up to 150,000 people have died, a quarter of Sudan’s 49 million inhabitants are displaced, and supply chains through Port-Sudan tremble, threatening grain flows to the wider Red Sea corridor.

Middle-power rivalry rewrites the Horn’s balance

Washington once dominated the Horn of Africa’s diplomacy, brokering deals from Eritrea’s independence to South Sudan’s birth. Today Gulf monarchies, Turkey and other emerging actors bankroll opposing Sudanese factions. Riyadh and Cairo back General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s Sudan Armed Forces, seeing them as a bulwark against Islamist resurgence and Ethiopian ambitions. Abu Dhabi, despite public denials, is widely accused of funnelling arms to Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces through eastern Libya.

A mediation labyrinth with no referee

Competing patrons export their mistrust to every negotiating table. Talks in Djibouti, Jeddah and Switzerland collapsed when sponsors could not agree on sequencing a ceasefire and power-sharing. In the words of one African Union official, “We are coordinating the coordinators rather than the combatants,” a diplomatic void that freezes front lines instead of silencing guns.

Humanitarian suffering meets high-tech warfare

As the warring parties import precision munitions and rotary-wing drones, urban neighbourhoods such as Omdurman’s Al-Thawra district endure nightly strikes. The International Organization for Migration warns that cholera and measles stalk overcrowded camps from Gedaref to Wad Madani. Yet convoy corridors remain hostage to military calculations; ceasefire monitors cannot even reach the capital’s airport tarmac.

Regional contagion risks

Ethiopia’s tensions with Eritrea, Chad’s fragile transition and South Sudan’s own rebellions all intersect with Sudan’s turmoil. Arms leak across porous frontiers, and fighters move along contraband routes once used for cattle and gold. Should Port-Sudan fall, Egypt’s southern gateway and Saudi shipping lanes could face asymmetric attacks, adding a maritime dimension to an already sprawling crisis.

The shrinking space for US leadership

The United States helped craft the September roadmap yet discovered that signature power no longer equals leverage. With limited trade ties and no cheque-book diplomacy to rival Gulf billions, Washington must now operate inside coalitions where it plays facilitator, not arbiter. Failure to adjust, analysts warn, could normalise Sudan-style stalemates across the continent.

Emerging African agency

African institutions are not passive spectators. The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development proposes a contact group blending AU envoys with Gulf and Western representatives. Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti contest chairmanship roles, reflecting both ambition and fragmentation. Without coherent African leadership, the war’s trajectory could dictate instead of being dictated by continental security norms.

Scenarios for the months ahead

Short term, the most plausible outcome is a de-facto partition: the army entrenched along the Nile corridor, the RSF entrenched in Darfur and Khartoum’s outskirts. A frozen conflict would institutionalise humanitarian corridors yet entrench war economies anchored in gold, remittances and foreign cash. Alternatively, a sudden shift in sponsor priorities—such as a Saudi-UAE détente—could unlock a negotiated unity government, but the window is narrow.

Why Sudan matters beyond its borders

Sudan sits at the crossroads of the Arab world, the Sahel and the Red Sea. How the current crisis is resolved, or not, will instruct future responses to transnational insurgencies, coup-born regimes and climate-driven displacements. For Central African and Gulf policymakers alike, the lesson is stark: absent a credible, coordinated external arbiter, local conflicts can mutate into endless regional wars—setting a disturbing precedent for the continent’s security architecture.