Sudan’s Foreign Policy Issues: Domestic Interests, Regional Loyalties and Shifting International Interests
Can Sudan’s fragile, joint-military and civilian government handle the new pressures it faces on the international stage? From the Grand Renaissance Dam project to the war in Eritrea to playing off all sides of the ongoing Middle Eastern power struggle, one of the Arab Springs most promising opportunities faces a difficult set of challenges. But the stability of the country and the Horn of Africa in general relies on the betterment of its people and its emerging democracy, and there is no shortcut to reform that will ensure this, writes Kholood Khair.
Two years after Sudan’s dictator Omar al-Bashir was swept from power by national protests, one of the potential success stories of the ‘Arab Spring’ faces new and enduring challenges.
The Sovereignty Council of Sudan, led by army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and featuring a mix of civilian and military leaders, now rules over the North-East African country with a General Election planned for 2023. In the meantime, the civilian government needs steadfast support and a clear-headed foreign policy to maximise opportunities for entrenching democracy.
This emerging democracy faces not only a moribund economy, an inability to meet energy needs, and ongoing political competition bleeding into every facet of its transition, but also has to contend with a dynamic foreign policy arena.
Headquarters of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan. Photo: Sudanese government website.
The country’s transition to democracy makes Sudan particularly vulnerable to changing regional dynamics. Firstly, Sudan shares unguarded borders with seven countries, across which flow large amounts of people and money, both legally and illegally. The unprotected nature of these flows makes control of these borders difficult, at best and a nightmare, at worst.
Secondly, as a country in the cold for two decades – thanks to a US designation of Sudan as a State Sponsor of Terror from 1997-2020 – Sudan had few allies and partners to work with, and in the past relied heavily on China. Nevertheless, over its almost 30-year rule, the Bashir government had become surprisingly adept at playing competing regional and international powers against each other for financial gain. Their exploitation of the animosity between Saudi Arabia and Iran to provide for its energy needs (petroleum and natural gas, respectively) is an important example.
The civilian-led transitional government now seeks to prove that it is a partner rather than an enemy of Western powers and has put much of its efforts into signalling its return to the international fold. This foreign policy must now simultaneously show that it is not predicated only on brute economic interests, unlike the previous regime’s, but instead on longer-term, economic and political opportunity and stability to show civilian dividends domestically.
Therein lies a key complication for the transitional government: the country’s current government is not wholly civilian but a part-military, part-civilian chimera and is challenged with finding a Sudanese foreign policy stance to regional and international issues that suits both sides of the bifurcated government.
This means finding a happy medium between continuing to deal with the region’s autocrats, who support the military, and the Western powers who have, rhetorically and financially, pledged to support the civilian transition.
Shaky position: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Tigray and other hazards
Further complicating matters is Sudan’s geography. Sudan has the particular distinction of being located at the cross-roads of three major political regions, all which are in flux: the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea basin.
Unlike two years ago, Sudan now finds itself surrounded by countries undergoing different stages of transition, with varying levels of success. Despite this, and because few of these recent political changes pretended to have democratic foundations, military leaders remain key players in Egypt, Libya, Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan; all with high levels of engagement with Sudan’s military.
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Photo: Ethio Embassy Rwanda, Twitter.
This geographic and political confluence, owing to its dynamic political changes, is now receiving keen attention from both the African continent and beyond. After Biden’s victory in the US’ 2020 presidential elections, American appetite for intervention has once again been reignited.
The war in the Tigray region of Ethiopia has added another layer of regional complexity. Tensions between former leaders the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the central government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, came to an armed confrontation in the North-Eastern state of Tigray. The tensions are the result of the enduring political contestations about unitary versus federalised government in Ethiopia and were set off by the TPLF refusing to remain part of Abiy’s ruling coalition.
The crisis, and its spillover into Sudan, has seen the US send Senator Jeff Coons, a close ally of President Biden, as well as appoint former UN undersecretary Jeffrey Feltman as Horn of Africa Envoy. Both visited Sudan to broach the Horn of Africa’s three biggest priorities: Tigray, the burgeoning border conflict between Sudan and Ethiopia, and the tensions around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the latter of which also draws in Egyptian interest, and ire.
The GERD is seen equally, but in diametrically opposing directions, by Ethiopia and Egypt as central to their economic and political survival. The dam, which is near completion, has become a tug of war between the two countries, with Sudan initially stuck in the middle.
The resolution of the issues around the GERD lies in technical solutions, but political moves currently take supremacy. Ethiopia is moving ahead with filling the dam and hoping to show both the value of the project by preventing floods in Sudan during the rainy season and presenting Egypt and Sudan with a fait accompli once filling has taken place. It is a risky move and one that is, however, enabled by Egypt’s loss of a steadfast if bellicose ally President Trump.
Closer to home, the tensions around the GERD have drawn in UAE support for Ethiopia and have caused a destabilisation in the Arab Axis of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, which emerged during Trump’s term in office.
Caught in the geographic and political middle of Egypt-Ethiopia tensions, and undergoing a transition after both countries, Sudan may be expected to learn from regional experiences to become something of a lynchpin of stability in the region. Sudan’s hybrid model of governance might provide the soft-landing that neighbouring militaries might yet take during their own ongoing transitions.
This would, however, require much smarter engagement with Sudan’s transition opportunities towards civilian democratisation than is currently the case. Curiously, the Sudanese prime minister Abdalla Hamdok is also an advocate for what he calls the Sudan Model of governance: a part civilian, part military government structure. Ironically, Hamdok himself is not benefiting from this model as he struggles to show civilian dividends to the political and economic turmoil engulfing Sudan’s transition - turmoil that, in many ways, is propagated by military interests.
Permanent interests in the Horn of Africa
Recent US engagement on the Horn marks a departure from Trump-era policy on Sudan, which was largely outsourced to Gulf allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE, countries whose interests had hardly allied with supporting democratic transition in Sudan.
After the fall of Bashir, the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) had enjoyed immense political and financial support from its Gulf allies, emboldening the TMC to resist calls from civil society for the military to undertake a minimised caretaker role in the transitional government. Together, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had pledged US$3 billion towards Sudan, only a sixth of which materialised once it became clear the military would be forced to share power with a civilian government, in a framework building towards democratisation after 30 years of autocratic rule.
Subsequent donor platforms, like the Friends of Sudan conferences saw Saudia Arabia and the UAE pledge nowhere near the initially-promised US$3 billion, a clear signal of the Gulf’s interests. The US, for its part, was quickly losing legitimacy for espousing democratic values and support to the civilian transition while its regional allies ran roughshod over the inchoate civilian cabinet’s plans towards economic reform, also hampered by Sudan remaining on the State Sponsor of Terror List (SSTL).
It wasn’t until the Trump administration needed greater support for the Abraham Accords – less a peace deal than a security pact – that Sudan was able to leverage its removal from the SSTL in exchange for signing the Accords in January of this year. The cynical quid pro quo was a fitting end to Trump era foreign policy on Sudan.
Biden’s election win was well-timed for Sudan. Four years earlier, the Obama administration had planned to delist Sudan at the end of its term on the condition that Sudan show progress on human rights, only to then issue an executive order to solely lift sanctions temporarily, leaving it to the Trump administration to decide on Sudan’s progress. Trump’s brash approach to international relations may have been necessary to push forth certain agendas without the liberal hand-wringing that has been typical of the Democrats’ engagement on Sudan.
However, Biden’s administration is currently in a better ideological position to support civilian transition to democracy. Indeed, Biden’s inauguration has spurned on many realignments in the broader region: erstwhile Gulf foes Saudi Arabia and Qatar quickly made peace after it became clear that Trump would not, after all, be able to overturn the US 2020 electoral results and Egypt’s bellicose stance towards Ethiopia on the GERD became, on the surface at least, more conciliatory.
President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki. Picture: US Department of Defence/WikiCommons.
One constant that has remained, for now, is Eritrea’s long-term leader and recent Ethiopia ally Isaias Afwerki, who is himself resisting his own country’s transition. Afwerki’s recent trip to neighbouring Sudan to press his interest with his long-term allies in the military, has not gone unnoticed. Given Afwerki’s support for Ethiopia, his troops’ involvement in the war in Tigray, and his close relationship to Bashir, his fan-fare welcome to Khartoum by both military and civilian components of the government may seem counterintuitive under current circumstances. But it could also be a sign that Sudan is playing smarter politics. Keeping Afwerki, a neighbour, in play on negotiations on the border as well as the GERD is smart, if incredibly risky, and it remains to be seen how well the hybrid government can balance these risks.
As one of the last dictators left standing in the Horn, Afwerki’s lack of dependence on US influence and largesse, and his support from the UAE (which has plans to build a port at Assab) is for now enabling him to continue his attempts to play the Horn to his tune. The UAE’s appointment of Afwerki as its unofficial Horn of Africa envoy demonstrates its reliance on a strategy of leveraging its economic might as a mediation tool.
This approach, however, puts the UAE on a collision course with fellow Arab Axis allies Egypt, who have taken to backing the Sudanese military on the border issue against Ethiopia and who stand firm against the GERD. Egypt hopes that offering political and materiel support for Sudan now will ensure reciprocal support on future dam talks in the future.
The fast pace of regional developments and realignments are forcing Sudan to build its foreign policy in real time, which is not ideal. However, in February, Sudan showed a more sophisticated approach to foreign policy and signs that, despite many domestic policy differences, both military and civilian leaders can be in agreement. The publicity on an overstated deal between Sudan and Russia on a naval base on the Red Sea (which would have been the first for Russia on the Red Sea) allowed Russia enough surety to dock one of its frigates in Port Sudan.
This was followed, less than 20 hours later by the USS Winston Churchill and a message from Rear Admiral Baze of the US Sixth Fleet that the US “looks forward to fortifying [its] …friendship [with Sudan]… at sea and ashore.” As far as applying pressure on superpowers goes, it was a master stroke. But it is not a move that Sudan wants to play too often, and especially not without a well-thought out foreign policy framework. Seeking partnerships with a range of actors rather than, once again, relying on a single superpower - and its whims - is far more intelligent, if convoluted. Russia, for its part, has not given up on the hopes of a naval base.
A US Navy sailor onboard the USS Winston Churchill as it docks in Sudan. Photo: Getty Images.
The messaging from Baze, however, was clear: to “further build … US partnership with the Sudanese Armed Forces”, all the while the US embassy in Khartoum still lacks its full diplomatic capacity, as ensured through the appointment of an Ambassador, to pursue high-level engagement with the civilian government. It’s worth noting that the US has shown a willingness to turn its back on democracy abroad many times before. With the power balance between military and civilian still very much in flux, there are no guarantees for Sudan’s civilian transition that it will have a permanent friend in any country, western or eastern.
Sudan needs its allies to have unflinching support to its democratic transitions, in word and in deed, as a permanent interest. The temptation to forgo democracy for some measure of immediate stability, a temptation too often succumbed to by Western foreign policy, is reckless and short-termist. The fact remains that backing repressive military regimes is a false economy - any immediate rewards in terms of foreign policy progress have to be paid back with interest soon enough as political instability invariably endures or resurfaces.
The propensity towards this particular stance is rooted in a perverse fatalism which sees Africa and the Middle East - both of which Sudan straddles - as inherently inclined towards autocracy, with a preference for strongman politics. This view is often encouraged by many of the region’s governments and autocrats.
During transitions, this preference towards unitary and authoritarian politics means that regional and international relations are characterised by an inability to respond to plural politics, as engendered by civilian-led political change.
The stability of the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, and the Sahel relies much more on the betterment of its people, and no shortcut to reforms will ensure this: it will only delay the inevitable and lay the grounds for future protest and resistance. A smart Sudanese, and indeed regional, foreign policy, requires both military and civilian powers of the transitioning governments to prioritise this.
Kholood Khair is managing partner at Insight Strategy Partners, a think and do tank based in Khartoum. She can be reached on Twitter @KholoodKhair.