Sudan: the Proxy War the World is Ignoring

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Video originally published on April 16, 2024.

This analysis examines Sudan: the Proxy War the World is Ignoring in historical and strategic context. It traces how the core developments unfolded, which institutions and actors shaped outcomes, and what those decisions changed on the ground. Rather than repeating headline-level claims, it focuses on concrete mechanisms, constraints, and tradeoffs that explain the trajectory of events. The discussion moves from Key Developments through Strategic Implications to Risk and Uncertainty, then evaluates wider consequences. The goal is to clarify not only what happened, but why these developments still matter for current planning, risk assessment, and policy decisions.

Key Takeaways

Even as ethnic cleansing sweeps Darfur; even as millions of people slip towards starvation, large swathes of the media remain largely silent.
Russia. The United Arab Emirates. Ukraine. Ethiopia. Egypt. Saudi Arabia.
All these countries and more are vying for power on Sudan's battlefields.
The capital Khartoum and the largest city Omdurman have been reduced to hollow wrecks.
Sadly, a single moment was all it could ever be. Thrust into power, the civilian-led transitional government failed to hold the country together.

Key Developments

Even as ethnic cleansing sweeps Darfur; even as millions of people slip towards starvation, large swathes of the media remain largely silent. Happy to relegate the Sudan War to second-tier status, below the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. We covered the reasons why back in November - ranging from the war's sheer complexity to the lack of any faction to root for. Nearly five months later, though, our central point remains: this is a crisis everyone should be paying attention to. Not just for humanitarian reasons, but for its ability to suck in multiple world powers. Right now, the list of nations being dragged into Sudan's proxy war is spectacular: Iran. Right now, the list of nations being dragged into Sudan's proxy war is spectacular: Iran. All these countries and more are vying for power on Sudan's battlefields. Who succeeds could determine the course of geopolitics for decades to come. (TITLE): A Year in Hell In the year since civil war erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023, the 45 million inhabitants of this vast African nation have experienced hardship on a staggering scale. The UN estimates over 8 million people have been displaced by the fighting - far more than even in Syria or Ukraine. About 25 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, while the International Rescue Committee estimates that seven million could be on the brink of famine. Across the country, whole cities have been destroyed. The capital Khartoum and the largest city Omdurman have been reduced to hollow wrecks. In the west, wild looting and arson has devastated El Geneina. Officially, the UN death toll stands at “over 13,000,” but almost everyone believes that's an undercount. The fighting and subsequent anarchy in El Geneina alone may have ended 10,000 lives, and the city may not even be the worst hit. In short, the war is an ongoing disaster. A disaster UN officials have described as: “One of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history.” And yet, for all its devastation, for all its destruction and lives curtailed, the conflict seems to be having roughly zero impact on the world stage. We don't just mean in America and Europe. For all the collective West is more preoccupied with Ukraine and Gaza, things are hardly different even in Africa. According to the Economist: “The African Union appears to be unmoved by the catastrophe and is retreating to a policy of 'non-interference' in the affairs of its members.” The UN Security Council is also looking away, as is the global media. While there's likely to be a flurry of articles to mark the fighting's one year anniversary, on the day this script was being written - April 4th - there was no mention of Sudan on the homepages of the New York Times, the Guardian, the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, or any of a dozen mainstream sites we checked.

Strategic Implications

Russia. The United Arab Emirates. Ukraine. Ethiopia. Egypt. Saudi Arabia. It's almost as if a wizard cast a spell to render this one war invisible. At least, it's invisible in the public sphere. As we'll discuss in later chapters, though, plenty of governments are quietly getting involved in Sudan's conflict behind the scenes. Backing different factions in the hopes of gaining some advantage over friends and foes alike. But before we get onto that, we should probably take a moment to give you a sense of where the conflict stands. A quick overview of the situation as of early April, to help everyone understand what's at stake. In its most-basic form, the war is a power struggle between two armed factions that used to be in government together. On one side are the Sudanese Armed Forces (or SAF) under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who relocated his government out of Khartoum when fighting erupted to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. On the other are the Rapid Support Forces (or RSF) under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known universally as Hemedti. While Al-Burhan and the SAF hold most of their territory in the east, the RSF's main base is to the west, in Darfur. Khartoum and the surrounding cities in the center also nearly fell to RSF forces last year, but are currently contested. Just an aside here, it's words like this that make describing the situation in Sudan so difficult. “Contested” makes it sound like the capital is at the center of a gentlemanly dispute, like who controls it can be settled by fisticuffs at dawn. The reality, of course, is far more-horrifying. At time of writing, Khartoum is “contested” in the sense that the two factions have nearly destroyed it. The Presidential Palace is a bombed-out ruin, the downtown gutted by fire. Government buildings have been destroyed, and basic infrastructure and services have collapsed, forcing most of the population to flee. Neighboring Omdurman, meanwhile, was just regained by the SAF using tactics similar to how Russia conquered Mariupol in 2022: bomb everything flat and then claim victory on the smoking rubble. Be warned, this will be a theme going forward. Both factions have caused widespread destruction, and both have committed war crimes. The Financial Times, for example, reports that the SAF have killed countless civilians by shelling densely-populated urban areas. Foreign Policy, meanwhile, accuses the RSF of being “a looting machine,” which has ransacked and burned entire cities, before murdering or enslaving the survivors. And then there are the harrowing tales of sexual abuse. To quote the FT again: “Women's campaigners say (...) more than 1,000 women in Khartoum (have) been raped by fighters from both sides.” Add to this the reports of ethnic cleansing by the RSF against the African Masalit tribe in Darfur, and it's clear that Sudan today is a vision of Hell.

Risk and Uncertainty

All these countries and more are vying for power on Sudan's battlefields. Who succeeds could determine the course of geopolitics for decades to come. (TITLE): A Year in Hell In the year since civil war erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023, the 45 million inhabitants of this vast African nation have experienced hardship on a staggering scale. The UN estimates over 8 million people have been displaced by the fighting - far more than even in Syria or Ukraine. About 25 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, while the International Rescue Committee estimates that seven million could be on the brink of famine. Across the country, whole cities have been destroyed. A place where monstrous men do monstrous things, while few outsiders seem willing to pay attention. Yet it would be wrong to call the crimes committed in Sudan the result of mere anarchy, a free-for-all like the carnage affecting Haiti. Rather, they are the result of tensions and hatreds that stretch back decades. (TITLE): Seeds of Hate Like many large, African states with illogical colonial-era borders, Sudan has seen its fair share of civil wars. From the moment it gained independence from the UK in 1956, Sudan almost immediately plunged into a conflict powered by the fissures between north and south - what the New Statesman calls: “The country's division between the majority Arab and Muslim north and the poorer Christian and animist south.” Lasting until the 1970s, the conflict was then followed by a second round that kicked off in 1983 and didn't end until 2005. By then, two million people were dead, and Sudan itself had fallen under the iron boot of Islamist dictator Omar al-Bashir, who would reign until 2019. But it's not the two Sudanese civil wars of the 20th and early-21st centuries that have the most-impact on today's conflict. The driving issue of those fights was mostly solved when South Sudan split off in 2011 to form a brand-new country. No, the conflict with the deepest connection to today's civil war took place not in Sudan's south, but its west. Specifically, in the vast savannah region known as Darfur. Kicking off in 2003, the Darfur War was the great atrocity of its era. Technically beginning when local armed groups launched a rebellion against the center, it soon devolved into an ethnic conflict marked by a genocidal campaign against Black communities like the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa. A campaign carried out, in large part, by the Janjaweed. Arabic-speaking nomads, the Janjaweed militias are the direct ancestors of the Rapid Support Forces that are currently battling the SAF. Foreign Policy describes how ethnic Arabs first arrived in Darfur 300 years ago, where they quickly prospered. Quote: “They were the lords of the desert, rich from trade and camel herding, regarding the darker-skinned farming peoples of the savannahs as their social inferiors, even their slaves.” By the time of the genocide, though, the wealth and power of the Arabic-speakers had been lost.

Outlook

The capital Khartoum and the largest city Omdurman have been reduced to hollow wrecks. In the west, wild looting and arson has devastated El Geneina. Officially, the UN death toll stands at “over 13,000,” but almost everyone believes that's an undercount. The fighting and subsequent anarchy in El Geneina alone may have ended 10,000 lives, and the city may not even be the worst hit. In short, the war is an ongoing disaster. A disaster UN officials have described as: “One of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history.” And yet, for all its devastation, for all its destruction and lives curtailed, the conflict seems to be having roughly zero impact on the world stage. Deprived and lacking in education, they were now the ones who got looked down on by the elites in Khartoum. Yet few dreamed of overthrowing the center. Instead, the dream was to move out of Darfur's arid regions and claim its fertile lands to the south. In time, this grew into an Arab supremacist agenda that envisaged the expulsion of Darfur's darker-skinned residents. When war erupted in 2003, the nomadic tribes finally got their chance. Desperate to end the rebellion in Darfur, Omar al-Bashir authorized the creation of the Janjaweed. These new militias did their jobs well - an estimated 200,000 were killed in the genocide, and two million forced into exile. For a dictator like al-Bashir, this counted as a success. In 2013, he rewarded the Janjaweed by reorganizing them into the Rapid Support Forces and giving their leaders military ranks. In 2017, they would be made independent of the military to act as a counterweight to the SAF, which the dictator feared was getting too powerful. Even as they grew, the RSF held onto their local roots - as head of the outfit, Hemedti mostly recruited from his own Rizeigat tribe - although their role quickly expanded beyond operations in Darfur. The New Statesman has likened the RSF in this era to Russia's Wagner Group. Vicious mercenaries who could do any task from fighting a conventional war in Darfur, to guarding the border, to deploying to Yemen as part of the Saudi-led intervention. But while Wagner's attempt at rebellion in 2023 would fizzle out, the RSF - and Hemedti - would succeed in rising to the very top. The trigger was the Sudanese Revolution of 2019. In the face of mass protests and widespread civil disobedience against the regime of Omar al-Bashir, the RSF and SAF joined forces with the civilian movement to overthrow the dictator. For one brief, shining moment, it looked like this might be the start of a new era. A joint government was set up between Hemedti and the RSF, General al-Burhan and the SAF, and a civilian element, with the goal of ushering in a transition to democracy.

The Unseen Crisis: Sudan's Proxy War

Sadly, a single moment was all it could ever be. Thrust into power, the civilian-led transitional government failed to hold the country together. Here's how Chatham House describes it: “The civilian-led cabinet headed by Abdalla Hamdok (...) could neither stabilize the economy nor loosen the military kleptocrats' stranglehold over the most profitable sectors. Left to fend for themselves by international donors that failed to appreciate the urgency of a massive bailout, the democrats' failure was preordained.” In late-2021, al-Burhan and Hemedti again joined forces, this time to depose the civilian leadership. That left a government with two major figures at its head: one paramilitary from a poor background in Darfur, the other a general who seemed to represent the centralized elite. As the Guardian writes: “When attempts to transition to a democratic civilian-led government faltered, many analysts felt an eventual showdown between Burhan and Hemedti was inevitable.” The showdown finally came on April 15, 2023. In the previous months, both the RSF and SAF had deployed huge numbers of forces to the capital, conscious of a looming battle to control Sudan. Initially, the assumption was that the better-armed SAF would win a quick, bloody victory. But as the streets of Khartoum shuddered to the dull thud of bombs, it became clear that things wouldn't be so simple. Fast forward to today, and the war looks intractable. While the SAF has had recent successes retaking cities in the capital region around Khartoum, the RSF is dug-in in Darfur and regions of the south. According to Sudan expert Cameron Hudson: “Neither side look(s) capable of delivering a knockout blow.” However, it's not the state of the war itself that we want to focus on right now. Instead, we want to pivot a less-talked about aspect. One that's both fascinating and troubling. The role multiple major powers are playing behind the scenes in keeping this conflict going. (TITLE): Puppet Masters The fact that Sudan's conflict has mutated into a proxy war is not exactly a well-kept secret. Scores of respected analysts and institutions have been raising the alarm about it now for months. Here's Britain's Chatham House think tank: “Sudan has become a cockpit in which the rising powers of the Middle East seek to project their power and gain an advantage over their rivals.” Here's Sudan expert Cameron Hudson, being paraphrased by the Financial Times: “The war (...) (is) being fueled by external forces vying for influence in the strategically important country.” Foreign Policy claims multiple Middle Eastern nations are involved. The Guardian, meanwhile, has pointed the finger at everyone from the US, to Iran, to the UAE. The key point, then, isn't that Sudan is secretly a proxy war.

Historical Context: Sudan's Turbulent Past

A proxy conflict unfolding in a country bordering the geostrategically important Red Sea, yet one that's going broadly unremarked on. So, attempt to do our small part to remedy that. To give you some sense of who is involved in this conflict, what they hope to gain from it, and what their involvement might mean for the wider world. We'll start with one of the Middle East's key rising powers: the United Arab Emirates. Long an important US ally in the Gulf, UAE has emerged in recent years as an active player in both the Middle East and Africa - often pursuing policies at odds with America's stated interests. It's Abu Dhabi, for example, that's bankrolling Ethiopia's leader Abiy Ahmed, including by supplying him with the drones that helped him win the bloody Tigray War. But the Gulf monarchy was meddling in Africa long before the first shots were ever fired in Ethiopia. For today's video, the most-relevant part is the hand Abu Dhabi had in the 2019 overthrow of Omar al-Bashir. In the chaos that surrounded Sudan's revolution, UAE was among the first states to establish ties with the civilian-led Transitional Council, offering advice and expertise. Per World Politics Review: “Abu Dhabi (...) shepherded the post-Bashir transition on terms favorable to its preferences and interests.” One major goal was to win backing to invest in the $6 billion Abu Amama port complex on Sudan's Red Sea coast, a prize UAE has long sought. But Abu Dhabi's role also had a political dimension. Since the Arab Spring saw a rising tide of Islamist parties, it has been UAE policy to keep political Islam firmly in its box. In Sudan this became a major priority, not just because the SAF had ties to al-Bashir's old Islamist government, but because of the post-revolution rise of religious militias such as the Al-Bara bin Malik Brigade. As a result, Abu Dhabi cozied up to the RSF and Hemedti as a possible bulwark. When war broke out, that cozying up turned into strong military support. Over the past year, multiple allegations have surfaced that UAE is flying weapons and supplies into Chad and then smuggling them over the border to the RSF in Darfur. These allegations go deeper than just rumors circling on social media. A leaked document prepared by experts for the UN Security Council found “credible” evidence that UAE flights intended for humanitarian aid were instead distributing arms to Hemedti's guys. While Abu Dhabi flatly rejects this, multiple analysts believe UAE is critical to keeping the RSF in the game. Speaking to the FT, Sudan expert Hamid Khalafallah even declared: “If the UAE withdraws its support and cuts ties with the RSF today there's an 80 per cent chance the war might end tomorrow.” Rather than withdraw support, though, Abu Dhabi seems intent on expanding it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main reason for the war in Sudan?

See the full article for details on What is the main reason.

What is the status of the war in Sudan?

See the full article for details on What is the status of.

What were the three major proxy wars?

See the full article for details on What were the three major.

Is Sudan a Chinese ally?

See the full article for details on Is Sudan a Chinese ally?.

Who is fighting the proxy war in Sudan?

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Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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