Sudan: A Proxy Machine, a Sub-Imperial Ambition, and a Region Fighting to Stop the Collapse
There are moments in African politics when the truth hides in plain sight, yet the world pretends it sees fog. Sudan’s war is one of them. For nearly two years, analysts have wasted ink debating “complexity,” “dual narratives,” and “moral ambiguity.” It’s nonsense. Strip away the diplomatic varnish and one fact stands firm: the RSF is a foreign-fuelled militia tearing Sudan apart, and the people paying the price are Sudanese.
The gruesome massacres in Darfur, the ethnic cleansings in El Geneina and El Fasher, the rapes, the market burnings — they aren’t accidents of war. They are the method of the RSF. A militia built on the Janjaweed tradition, financed through smuggled gold, and lubricated by foreign arms, cannot become a national force simply because lobbyists in Washington or Abu Dhabi whisper the right slogans.
And this is where the story stops being domestic. The war is not simply RSF versus SAF. It is Sudan versus a sub-imperial project that has been metastasizing across the Red Sea for a decade.
The UAE’s Fingerprints Aren’t a Secret — They’re a Pattern
No serious regional observer needs another leaked cable or satellite photo to admit what everyone in Khartoum, Asmara, Cairo and Riyadh already knows. The UAE’s support to the RSF is not an allegation — it’s a pattern.
A pattern of:
- cargo flights landing in remote airstrips under “aid” covers,
- gold networks running from Darfur into Dubai,
- and well-connected operators lobbying in US think tanks to rebrand the Sudanese army as “Islamists,” so the RSF looks palatable by comparison.
Call it what it is: a sub-imperial footprint, built on money, militias, and strategic corridors — from Yemen to Libya, from Somaliland to Sudan. And as always, it is African civilians who break under its weight.
The UAE can deny until its diplomats turn blue, but the evidence is built into the war’s architecture. Without that pipeline of money, drones and logistics, the RSF would be a scattered gang, not a quasi-army terrorizing whole states inside a sovereign nation.
Why Sudan’s Army Still Matters — Even With Its Flaws
Let’s be honest: Sudan’s Armed Forces are not saints. They carry their own baggage, their own entanglements with the old Bashir system. But here’s the unvarnished truth that polite analysts avoid: the SAF is still the last institutional backbone preventing Sudan from dissolving into fiefdoms.
A state doesn’t survive on NGO reports. It survives on institutions — courts, borders, army, administration. Destroy those, and you don’t get “democracy.” You get Libya, ten times over.
That’s why the region’s most stability-minded actors — Eritrea, Egypt, and increasingly Saudi Arabia — have converged on the same position: Sudan cannot be handed to a militia that answers to foreign financiers. Not now, not ever.
Why Eritrea, Egypt and Saudi Arabia See the Danger Clearly
Each of these states reads the map differently, but the conclusion is identical.
Eritrea looks at Sudan through the lens of hard-earned experience. It has no appetite for mercenary fiefdoms along the Red Sea or radical fragmentation along its western border. Asmara has spent decades resisting exactly this brand of externally-manufactured chaos. The RSF, with its cross-border networks and foreign sponsors, is the kind of destabilizing force no responsible state would tolerate.
Egypt, for its part, cannot afford the collapse of a giant neighbor that anchors the Nile Basin. A dismembered Sudan is an existential threat. Cairo sees clearly what Washington hesitates to admit: an RSF-run Sudan would be a permanent wound in the region.
Saudi Arabia tried neutrality at first, then mediation. But as RSF atrocities escalated and as the UAE’s shadow grew too large to ignore, Riyadh recalibrated. Today, its position is unmistakable. MBS recognizes that the fall of Sudan’s state institutions would turn the entire Red Sea corridor into an open wound — and that the quickest way to stabilize Sudan is to halt the RSF’s foreign oxygen.
When three states as different as Eritrea, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all land on the same conclusion, the question is not why they agree. The question is why the rest of the world still pretends it needs “further assessment.”
Trump Steps In — But Which Lobby Will He Listen To?
Trump’s dramatic entry into the Sudan file — encouraged by Saudi lobbying — briefly shifted the diplomatic landscape. His declaration that Sudan is “the most violent place on Earth” jolted Washington out of its ritual indifference. It raised hopes among Sudanese civilians that someone, somewhere, might finally stop supplying the RSF’s killing machine.
But US policy is a tug-of-war. On one side: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudanese civilians, all urging an end to the RSF pipeline. On the other: a very well-funded Emirati influence apparatus, working overtime to sanitize the RSF’s image and paint SAF as “Muslim Brotherhood” holdouts.
If Trump wants a real breakthrough, the choice is simple:
Stop the external supply chain. Pressure the patrons. Hold the war-merchants accountable. Sudanese civilians don’t need another “Quad formula.” They need the guns to fall silent.
A Simple Solution That the Powerful Keep Complicating
The world pretends Sudan is a diplomatic puzzle. It isn’t.
The formula for peace is painfully clear:
- Stop the UAE’s weapons and logistics pipeline to the RSF.
No militia survives when its sponsors face consequences. - Cut the financial arteries: gold laundering, mercenary economies, corporate fronts.
- Protect Sudan’s territorial integrity, not carve it up to satisfy foreign appetites.
- Reunify security forces under a civilian-led state, not under warlords.
Sudanese people have said this repeatedly. It is only outsiders who insist the war is too “complex” to solve.
Name the Problem - Stop Tiptoeing Around It
Africa has suffered enough from proxy wars disguised as local disputes. Sudan is no mystery. It is a nation being ripped apart by a foreign-sponsored militia while the world hides behind empty statements and recycled diplomacy.
What makes this even more tragic is that the institutions meant to defend African sovereignty have failed spectacularly. Instead of helping Sudan protect its territorial integrity, the African Union suspended Sudan at the moment it needed continental support the most. The AU didn’t isolate the foreign hands arming the RSF; it isolated the Sudanese state itself. It punished the victim while the perpetrators kept flying in weapons.
Meanwhile, the countries that understand the stakes — Eritrea insisting on Sudan’s unity, Egypt rejecting any attempt to carve the country into fiefdoms — have taken positions rooted in the fundamental principle Sudanese people have chanted for generations: “One Army, One People.”
Because without a unified national army, Sudan becomes a playground for militias, mercenaries and whoever is willing to pay them.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: if the international system cannot say aloud that a foreign state is pumping weapons, money and logistics into a genocidal militia, then African states must speak without fear. Silence is complicity. Euphemisms are betrayal.
At the end of the day, Sudan’s dignity, its sovereignty, and its survival hinge on a single question:
Will Africa allow a foreign-financed proxy force to decide the fate of 48 million Sudanese?
For those who still believe in African sovereignty — real sovereignty, not slogans — the answer is already clear.