On October 24, 2021, Jeffrey Feltman, then the United States Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, visited Sudan in an effort to defuse mounting tensions between the military and civilian components of the transitional government that had governed the country since the overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. During his visit, Feltman met with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and chairman of the Sovereign Council, his deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as Hemedti), leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. Feltman proposed a plan aimed at sustaining the fragile transition and averting a widely anticipated military coup (Feltman Reference Feltman2023). Mere hours after his departure from Khartoum, the Sudanese military detained several civilian members of the transitional government, including Hamdok. Subsequent diplomatic interventions by the United States and other regional and international actors failed not only to restore a civilian-led government but also to prevent the outbreak of a full-scale war between the SAF and RSF, which erupted in April 2023.
These dramatic developments, with far-reaching implications for the increasingly volatile Horn of Africa and broader Middle East, have triggered renewed debate over the failures of US policy in post-Bashir Sudan. According to some former American officials, Washington’s approach was overly pragmatic, relying on engagement with Sudan’s military leaders in the hope that they would facilitate a transition to civilian rule (e.g., Feltman Reference Feltman2023; Knopf Reference Knopf2024). This strategy, critics argue, ultimately legitimized the generals and reflected a naïve optimism about their intentions. Others contend that US policy was constrained by political realities on the ground and that no viable alternative existed. Given the military’s prominent role in the ousting of al-Bashir and its entrenched influence, its inclusion in the transitional process was seen as unavoidable (interview with Donald Booth, Zoom, November 7, Reference Booth2024; Satterfield in Guyer Reference Guyer2023).
Despite such divergent assessments, there is broad agreement on one point: the United States exercised limited leverage over the key actors in Sudan’s transition, particularly the military. Analysts have advanced a range of explanations for this constraint. Some American and Sudanese scholars attribute it to the absence of a coherent strategy and the relegation of Sudan to the periphery of US foreign policy priorities (De Waal Reference De Waal2023; Hudson Reference Hudson2024; interview with Ibrahim Elbadawi, Cairo, May 29, Reference Elbadawi2024; interview with Fayez El-Seleik, Cairo, June 20, Reference El-Seleik2024). Others highlight the role of regional powers—especially Egypt and the Gulf states—arguing that the US was unwilling to challenge these actors, primarily due to concerns about regional stability (Pospisil and Jenner Reference Pospisil and Jenner2022, 1). Some of these scholars further argue that escalating geopolitical competition—especially between the US and Russia—contributed to the erosion of the transition, citing Moscow’s deepening military and economic ties with both the SAF and RSF as an obstacle to civilian rule (De Waal Reference De Waal2023; Hudson Reference Hudson2023; Prendergast Reference Prendergast2024).
In spite of the agreement on Washington’s limited leverage on Sudan’s post-Bashir transition, there is less agreement on the reasons for this constraint. However, there is less agreement on the reasons for this constraint—whether it stems from shifting international and regional geopolitics, the US’s own foreign policy priorities and miscalculations, or a combination of these factors. While acknowledging the importance of these external and strategic dynamics, this paper argues for a more sustained focus on domestic influences shaping US policy towards post-Bashir Sudan. It contends that any comprehensive assessment of this policy must grapple with the contradictions inherent in the US democracy promotion agenda, as well as the evolving theory and practice of that agenda in American diplomacy over the past two decades. In addition, it underscores the role of domestic interests and political constituencies in shaping the prioritization—or marginalization—of Sudan within the US foreign policy apparatus. While some members of Congress advocated for elevating Sudan on the Biden administration’s foreign policy agenda, national security officials largely deprioritized Sudan in favor of managing relationships with regional powers fueling the conflict between the SAF and RSF. This was compounded by bureaucratic inertia within the State Department, which delayed a timely reassessment and reformulation of US policy, and the decline in domestic advocacy on Sudan. Together, these dynamics have not only weakened the effectiveness of American policy in Sudan but also contributed to the erosion of US influence and the growing assertiveness of geopolitical rivals in this strategically significant part of the Horn of Africa.
In developing its arguments, this paper draws not only on secondary literature but also on a range of primary sources, including official statements issued by the White House and the Department of State, interviews with former US officials published in various media outlets, and transcripts of congressional hearings on Sudan held by the Senate and House subcommittees on Africa between June 2019 and May 2024. The analysis is further informed by twenty semi-structured interviews conducted with former Sudanese officials, representatives of various political forces, and former American diplomats, activists, and experts. Interviewees were selected using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. They were approached either due to their official roles—such as former ministers in Sudan’s first transitional government and close aides to Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok—or their positions as former US diplomats and policy advisers during the Biden administration, or for their recognized expertise on Sudanese politics. An effort was made to include Sudanese interlocutors representing a range of political perspectives. Some interviewees belonged to political parties affiliated with the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), the coalition that spearheaded the uprising that ousted al-Bashir, while others aligned more closely with the military and supported the October 2021 coup.
Owing to the internal fragmentation among Sudan’s civilian political forces, the interview sample cannot be considered fully representative of the country’s diverse political landscape. To mitigate this limitation, this analysis incorporates secondary materials, including writings and media interviews by other transitional government members. Importantly, the Sudanese interviews are not limited to political elites. They also include dissenting voices from the Resistance Committees—grassroots networks that played a central role in the 2018 uprising. While some members of these committees maintained alignment with the FFC, others joined the Forces for Radical Change (FRC), a movement that rejected the FFC’s power-sharing arrangement with the military. Engaging with these diverse actors has helped reveal the range of perceptions—both within mainstream and dissident circles—regarding US policy. The interviews were transcribed and thematically analyzed to highlight the different perceptions on the objectives of US diplomacy, its priorities, and its interactions with domestic and regional actors.
The remainder of the paper is organized into five sections. The first outlines the theoretical framework, which draws on scholarship analyzing the paradoxes of the US democracy promotion agenda over the past two decades and the relatively limited literature on US policymaking in Africa. The second section briefly traces how these paradoxes and evolving dynamics have shaped US policy toward Sudan under and before the al-Bashir regime. The third examines how US policymakers have navigated these tensions in the post-Bashir period. The fourth section explores the domestic political constituencies that underpinned heightened US engagement in Sudan during the late 1990s and early 2000s, contrasting that period of engagement with the declining public and political attention to Sudan in the past decade. It also investigates the role of bureaucratic politics in shaping and implementing US Sudan policy. The fifth and final section offers concluding reflections, arguing that US policy failures in Sudan have undermined both short- and long-term American national security interests in the Horn of Africa.
Democracy promotion and the making of US Africa policy: A theoretical framework
The promotion of democracy has long been a cornerstone of US foreign policy, especially in the post–Cold War era. Encompassing a broad spectrum of instruments—including military intervention, diplomatic and economic pressure for regime change, economic incentives, and political support—US democracy promotion has served both ideological and pragmatic purposes in a rapidly shifting international order (Carothers Reference Carothers, Cox, Ikenberry and Inoguchi2000). During the Cold War, the US selectively supported democratic movements to counter Soviet-aligned regimes. In the post–Cold War period, however, the endorsement of democratic transitions came to symbolize the triumph of liberalism and the consolidation of a new world order (Hill Reference Hill2022). Within this context, American policymakers came to view the support of democratic movements as a legitimate foreign policy interest, one that aligned global politics with American values. As Mearsheimer observed, the US pursued “liberal hegemony,” at times through military means, to “remake the international system in its own image” (Mearsheimer Reference Mearsheimer2018, 120). This vision rested on the belief that promoting democracy abroad would reinforce liberalism at home, that liberal democracy was universally applicable, and that its diffusion would contribute to a more peaceful world.
Scholars have questioned these assumptions and debated the motivations, mechanisms, and outcomes of US democracy promotion efforts. A comprehensive review of this literature lies beyond the scope of this paper, but it is essential to highlight several recurring paradoxes that—as the following sections will show—influenced US diplomacy in Sudan. Chief among these is the persistent tension between democracy promotion and competing foreign policy objectives, especially security and economic interests. Numerous studies have shown that the US has often prioritized strategic concerns over democratic principles, particularly in contexts where authoritarian regimes serve its geopolitical interests (e.g., McFaul Reference McFaul2004; Mitchell Reference Mitchell2016, Smith Reference Smith, Cox, Ikenberry and Inoguchi2000). In Africa, this trade-off has frequently manifested in the context of the War on Terror, where partnerships with authoritarian regimes—especially their military and intelligence institutions—were deemed more valuable than supporting democratic reforms (Martin Reference Martin2004; Olsen Reference Olsen2017).
Another critical paradox concerns the limits of US diplomatic capacity to navigate the complexities of political transitions. The assumption that the US can successfully influence democratization abroad presumes both a deep understanding of local political dynamics and the capacity—or “know-how”—to intervene effectively (Mearsheimer Reference Mearsheimer2018, 121). In practice, the US has often favored procedural benchmarks, such as elections, over more substantive efforts to foster inclusive political participation and pluralism (Smith Reference Smith, Cox, Ikenberry and Inoguchi2000). Democracy promotion strategies have also assumed that authoritarian regimes are willing to democratize—an expectation that has frequently proven unfounded (Mitchell Reference Mitchell2016). Additionally, several scholars have pointed out the tension between democratization and neoliberal economic reform. Austerity measures and market liberalization often strain civil society, shrink political space, and shift decision-making authority away from domestic institutions to external actors, thereby hindering democratic transition (Smith Reference Smith, Cox, Ikenberry and Inoguchi2000). More critical perspectives have cast doubt on the very intent of US democracy promotion, framing it as a vehicle for advancing hegemonic or economic interests shaped by transnational capital (Chomsky Reference Chomski1992; Robinson Reference Robinson1996).
These critiques have grown more salient in the aftermath of failed interventions in the Middle East and the shift toward a multipolar international system in the late 2010s. This broader transformation led to a decline in democracy promotion as a central pillar of US foreign policy, beginning under the Obama administration. Increasingly, some voices within the foreign policy establishment began to argue that the US was overstretched and should adopt a more pragmatic approach to democracy promotion (Mitchell Reference Mitchell2016; Hill Reference Hill2022). Nowhere was this recalibration more evident than in relation to the Middle East and North Africa. Philip Gordon, who served as White House Coordinator for the Middle East under Obama and later as National Security Advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris, observed that US support for regime change in North Africa yielded neither “pro-Western democracy” nor “effective, tolerant, or cooperative autocracy” (Gordon Reference Gordon2020, 9).
This shift was explicitly reflected in the Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy. In a clear departure from past doctrine, the document acknowledged that the US had “often defaulted to military-centric policies underpinned by an unrealistic faith in force and regime change to deliver sustainable outcomes,” while failing to consider “opportunity costs” and “unintended consequences.” It called for abandoning grand strategies in favor of more pragmatic steps that “advance U.S. interests and help regional partners lay the foundation for greater stability, prosperity, and opportunity” (The White House 2022a, 42).
A similar tone was struck in the U.S. Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa, also published in 2022. While reaffirming democracy promotion as a strategic objective, the document situated it within the broader context of geopolitical competition with China and Russia, identifying democratic backsliding and a resurgence of military coups as openings for these “malign foreign actors” (The White House 2022b, 7–11).
In light of these trends, any analysis of US democracy promotion in Sudan—and in Africa and the Middle East more broadly—must consider not only the internal contradictions of this policy but also its evolving theory and practice. Yet despite growing scholarly and policy critiques of the US democracy promotion agenda, relatively little emphasis has been placed on the domestic variables that shape it. The limited literature underscores bureaucratic and institutional actors and tensions shaping democracy assistance (Diamond Reference Diamond1995; Carothers Reference Carothers, Cox, Ikenberry and Inoguchi2000) and reveals that democracy promotion occupies a marginal place in American public opinion (Holsti Reference Holsti, Cox, Ikenberry and Inoguchi2000; Christiansen, Heinrish and Peterson Reference Christiansen, Heinrich and Peterson2019).
This paper argues for a more sustained focus on the role of US domestic politics—including bureaucratic dynamics and public opinion—in shaping democracy promotion efforts. These variables are especially important in the African context. As Schraeder (Reference Schraeder1994, 13–14) noted, presidential disengagement from African affairs has historically left US Africa policy more vulnerable to bureaucratic influences than policies toward other regions. As for public engagement, while the African American lobby has generally been weak and focused more on domestic issues (Schraeder Reference Schraeder1994, 43–44), evangelical Christian lobbies gained significant influence over US policy in Africa—particularly in Sudan—around the turn of the century, although their activism has declined over the past decade (Cohen Reference Cohen2020). It is against this backdrop that the paper explores the rise and decline of Sudan’s lobby within Congress and among segments of the American public.
Focusing on US diplomacy in post-Bashir Sudan and the domestic factors that shaped it does not imply a denial of Sudanese agency. Domestic elites are not merely passive recipients of external influence but can act as “gatekeepers” who block democratic transitions (Tolstrup Reference Tolstrup2014). These elites rarely embrace external democratization agendas wholesale. Instead, they may resist, adapt, or reshape external actors’ goals by altering the perceived costs of promoting democracy in specific contexts (Grimm and Weiffen Reference Grimm and Weiffen2018). Accordingly, while this paper highlights the limitations of US engagement in post-Bashir Sudan, it also underscores the agency of Sudanese actors and their interactions with American diplomacy during the transition.
Equally important, this analysis does not overlook shifting geopolitical dynamics and the growing influence of regional powers. Sudan’s strategic location and natural resources have attracted international and regional actors with little interest in supporting democratic transition, leading them to strike deals with Sudanese military actors to secure their own interests. Russia has sought to establish a presence on the Red Sea and has profited from gold extracted by the RSF. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have expanded land investments and relied on both the SAF and RSF to supply ground troops for their military campaign in Yemen. The UAE has also expressed interest in developing new ports along the Red Sea and linking them to its current and planned agricultural schemes. Egypt, with the longest historical ties to Sudan, sees the country as essential to its water and border security and views support for the SAF as key to restoring stability and preventing state collapse. While acknowledging these interests and their impact on US diplomacy, this paper pays particular attention to how domestic actors within the US foreign policy establishment perceived and responded to these external pressures—a variable that has received comparatively little attention in academic and policy discourse.
America’s involvement in Sudan: Between security priorities and democracy promotion 2.0?
Post-independence Sudan has been marked by a pattern of short-lived democratic governments interrupted by successive military coups, resulting in prolonged periods of authoritarian rule. Under these regimes, democracy rarely figured as a priority in US diplomacy. Given Sudan’s strategic location at the crossroads of the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, US policy during the Cold War primarily focused on containing Soviet influence (Brown Reference Brown2003)—a concern that brought Washington into alignment with Sudanese military regimes. This was especially true under President Ja’afar Nimeiri, who shifted his allegiance from the Soviet Union to the US two years after his rise to power through a military coup in May 1969. The signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972, which ended the first civil war in Southern Sudan, along with US assistance for refugee resettlement in the region, further solidified this rapprochement. With American political backing and Saudi financial support, Nimeiri’s regime provided military aid to Eritrean insurgents fighting the socialist government in Ethiopia. The US was also allowed to position military equipment in Port Sudan (Central Intelligence Agency 1983). By the end of the 1970s, Sudan had become the top recipient of American aid in sub-Saharan Africa (Sidahmed and Sidahmed Reference Sidahmed and Sidahmed2005).
The Cold War prioritization of strategic security cooperation distanced US administrations from Sudan’s democratic movements and transitional governments. The democratic uprisings in October 1964 and April 1985 had neither sought nor benefitted from external support, including from the US (El-Affendi Reference El-Affendi2012, El-Battahani Reference El-Battahani2019). Moreover, US relations with the post-uprising democratic governments were fraught. The coalition government that emerged after the 1964 uprising pursued an inconsistent foreign policy, with some actions directly clashing with American interests. Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Sudan severed diplomatic ties with the US and hosted the Arab League summit in Khartoum, which issued the famous “Three No’s”—no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with it (Sidahmed and Sidahmed Reference Sidahmed and Sidahmed2005). Similarly, Prime Minister Al-Sadeq Al-Mahdi’s mid-1980s alignment with Libya and Iran alarmed Washington, prompting the reduction of US diplomatic staff in Khartoum and accusations that Sudan was hosting “a large contingent of Libyan terrorists” (US Department of State 2012). These alliances also antagonized key US regional partners, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The Islamist military regime that came to power under Omar al-Bashir in 1989 and its early agenda of exporting Islamic revolution sustained the primacy of security concerns in US policy. During the 1990s, the regime’s hosting of armed groups responsible for attacks on American targets led the Clinton administration to impose economic sanctions and pursue a policy of regime change. This included support for armed opposition movements that, as de Waal (Reference De Waal2015) noted, were no more committed to democratic principles than the regime they sought to topple. At the same time, little to no support was extended to peaceful pro-democracy actors. By the late 1990s, however, US policy began to shift toward intelligence cooperation as al-Bashir sought to reorient his foreign policy toward pragmatic partnerships.
Equally important was the growing US focus on the civil war in Southern Sudan. Pressuring the Khartoum regime to negotiate with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) became a central objective, especially under the George W. Bush administration. This was driven in large part by a powerful domestic coalition led by evangelical Christian groups and encompassing a broad alliance of human rights activists, Jewish organizations, the Congressional Black Caucus, and bipartisan lawmakers. While each faction had its own motivations, they were united in their commitment to end the wars in Southern Sudan and, later, Darfur. These actors framed the conflict in binary moral terms—depicting a radical Arab Islamist regime waging war against African Christians and traditional religious practitioners (McAlister Reference McAlister2014, 87–88). With regard to Darfur, they helped shape a narrative of genocide that contributed to the push for al-Bashir’s indictment by the International Criminal Court (Cohen Reference Cohen2012, 326). As Huliaras (Reference Huliaras2006, 723) noted, “never before have so many religious activists campaigned so consistently on a single foreign policy issue.”
This pressure was reflected in the passage of the Sudan Peace Act in June 2001, which allocated US$10 million annually in non-lethal aid to SPLM/A-controlled areas and threatened further sanctions against Khartoum if it failed to engage in peace negotiations. The US also placed Sudan on the watch list of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which labeled it the “world’s most violent abuser of the right to freedom of religion and belief” (McAlister Reference McAlister2014, 102). President Bush personally prioritized peace efforts, appointing John Danforth as Special Envoy with direct access to the White House. Although the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Sudanese government and the SPLM was premised on democratization as a means to address the root causes of conflict, the administration was, as former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Herman Cohen (Reference Cohen2012) observed, more focused on satisfying domestic constituencies than on transforming Sudan through a holistic democratic development agenda.
Under the Obama administration, counterterrorism and CPA implementation remained dominant priorities. Washington urged Khartoum to facilitate the Southern referendum in 2011 and uphold peace in the conflict-affected areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. These priorities were formalized in the 2016 “Five-Track Engagement Plan,” which conditioned sanctions relief on progress in several areas: cessation of hostilities in conflict zones, improved humanitarian access, sustained counterterrorism cooperation, non-interference in South Sudan, and collaboration in tackling the Lord’s Resistance Army. Sufficient progress on these tracks led the Obama administration to ease economic sanctions in January 2017. A second phase under the Trump administration included further conditions related to human rights—especially religious freedoms—and a commitment to cease military cooperation with North Korea, in exchange for Sudan’s removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List (SSTL) (Blanchard Reference Blanchard2019). Democracy, however, remained conspicuously absent from these conditionalities. While US negotiators reportedly proposed that al-Bashir not run for re-election in 2020, this suggestion was categorically rejected by Sudanese officials (interview with Maowia Othman Khalid, Washington, November 11, Reference Khalid2024). These negotiations revealed not only the marginal role of democracy in US diplomacy, but also Sudanese agency in resisting external pressure, even amid a deepening economic crisis after the secession of South Sudan.
US diplomacy toward the al-Bashir regime in its final decade also reflected broader shifts in the theory and practice of democracy promotion. Public statements by senior American diplomats illustrated the more restrained tone of the “democracy promotion 2.0” paradigm. Against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, US policymakers voiced concerns about the destabilizing consequences of regime collapse. In 2011, Special Envoy Princeton Lyman stated that the US “does not want to see the ouster of the regime” in Khartoum but instead preferred that it “carry out reform via constitutional democratic means.” He argued that a popular uprising would risk chaos and undermine US interests (Asharq Al-Awsat 2011).
This call for reform-from-within rested on the assumption that the al-Bashir regime was willing to democratize—an assumption the broader literature on democracy promotion consistently challenges. While al-Bashir did announce a national dialogue initiative in January 2014, the absence of serious international pressure and a unified domestic reform agenda rendered the process largely symbolic (El-Battahani Reference El-Battahani2014). Not surprisingly, Sudan’s progressive forces—who would later lead the December 2018 uprising—viewed US calls for gradual reform as an endorsement of “soft landing” strategies aimed at replacing al-Bashir without transforming the regime itself (Sudan Tribune 2017).
In sum, while US democracy promotion efforts have often competed with other foreign policy objectives elsewhere, in the Sudanese case, strategic priorities—ranging from Cold War alignments to counterterrorism and peace negotiations—clearly took precedence. Yet, US diplomacy in Sudan also reveals key paradoxes of democracy promotion, including the reliance on authoritarian regimes’ willingness to reform and the shift toward more modest, stability-focused goals. The next section explores how these patterns persisted—and evolved—following the December 2018 uprising.
US policy towards post-Bashir transition: Navigating the paradoxes of democracy promotion
On April 11, 2019, President Omar al-Bashir was ousted by his own security forces after ruling for three decades following a military coup. The decision by the security establishment came after four months of sustained popular protests, during which hundreds of thousands of Sudanese citizens took to the streets to contest mounting economic hardship and demand an end to al-Bashir’s regime. The protests were led by the FFC, a coalition that brought together professional associations, traditional and progressive political parties, armed opposition movements, and youth committees. Given the recalibrated American approach to democracy promotion—marked by caution towards regime change—the initial US position was conservative. The first statement issued by the American Embassy in Khartoum acknowledged the demonstrators’ aspirations for a peaceful and democratic Sudan but called for inclusive “political and economic reform” to realize these goals (US Embassy in Sudan 2019).
Some Sudanese actors interpreted this cautious stance as indicative of American skepticism—discussed in the first section—about the capacity of democratic uprisings to produce reliable pro-Western elites. According to El-Shafei Khidir (interview, Cairo, July 14, Reference Khidir2024), a former advisor to Prime Minister Hamdok, the US administration harbored reservations about the presence of progressive forces within the protest movement, especially the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP). Along similar lines, Amgad Eltayeb (interview, Cairo, July 21, Reference Eltayeb2024), a Sudanese activist and assistant chief of staff to Hamdok, noted that while American officials were accustomed to engaging with military regimes and traditional sectarian parties, they struggled to understand and relate to the emerging political actors represented by youth activists in local resistance committees. Mohamed Tahir, a spokesperson for the Khartoum committees, went further, alleging that the US sought to patronize and co-opt the committees by infiltrating their ranks and supporting parallel groups that claimed to represent them. According to Tahir (interview, Cairo, July 21, Reference Tahir2024), Washington operated with a “you’re either with us or against us” mentality. In line with more critical literature on the intent of US democracy promotion, this view aligns with analyses suggesting that Washington’s primary objective was to find a replacement for al-Bashir who would “please” the United States and its regional allies (Hassan Reference Hassan2022).
US diplomacy also unfolded against the backdrop of a transition marked by an imbalance of power between the civilian forces that led the uprising and the military that ultimately deposed al-Bashir, as well as by the civilians’ inability to translate their political momentum into sustained leverage. As El-Battahani (Reference El-Battahani2019) argued, a successful transition required transforming the diverse forces that coalesced to overthrow al-Bashir into a unified political bloc with effective leadership—a task the FFC failed to accomplish. El-Affendi (Reference El-Affendi and Abu Shouk2024, 916–17) characterizes this as a structural weakness that has consistently impeded Sudanese democratic transitions, compounded by the presence of armed movements seeking access to power and wealth through insurgency. From the outset, the FFC was divided over how to manage its relationship with the Transitional Military Council (TMC), which assumed control following Bashir’s ouster. Some factions, such as the SCP, rejected any partnership with the military, while others adopted a more pragmatic stance, recognizing that excluding the armed forces was unrealistic. As Khalid Omer Yousif (Reference Yousif2022), the Minister of Cabinet Affairs in Hamdok’s government, observed, the civilians had the power of popular legitimacy, but the military held physical coercive power, control over economic assets, and strong regional connections. This power dynamic laid the groundwork for the Constitutional Declaration, which created civil-military transitional institutions. The agreement established a largely ceremonial Sovereign Council composed of six civilians and five military representatives and delegated executive authority to a civilian-led cabinet. However, as acknowledged by FFC leaders (e.g., Yousif Reference Yousif2022; Suleiman Reference Suleiman2022), civilians in government failed to exercise the powers accorded to them and lost touch with the popular base, thereby forfeiting their main source of leverage.
This disconnect, coupled with internal FFC divisions and the military’s separate peace negotiations with armed groups culminating in the Juba Agreement in October 2020, tipped the balance decisively in favor of the military—ultimately paving the way for the October 2021 coup. Evidently, the FFC also sought to leverage the competition between various military and security institutions—particularly the rivalry between the SAF and RSF—which intensified following the fall of al-Bashir and ultimately culminated in armed confrontation in April 2023. Initially, the FFC viewed the SAF and RSF as countervailing forces. However, as internal divisions emerged within the civilian bloc, each faction eventually aligned itself with one of the two military groups.
Whether the US could have navigated the complexities of civil–military relations to achieve more favorable democratic outcomes remains disputed. The US Special Envoy under the Trump administration, Donald Booth (interview, Zoom, November 7, Reference Booth2024), argued that Washington endorsed the civil-military partnership as a reflection of the prevailing balance of power and convinced its Gulf partners within the newly formed Quad—comprising the US, UK, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—to accept this arrangement as key to Sudan’s stability. El-Affendi (Reference El-Affendi and Abu Shouk2024) argues that Western political support for civilians partially offset regional backing for the military, enabling the partnership. Others, however, contend that the US could have done more to support civilian authority. Payton Knopf (interview, Zoom, November 8, Reference Knopf2024), for instance, argued that the US and the FFC failed to seize the political momentum of the uprising to push for exclusive civilian control. Rather than tying Sudan’s removal from the SSTL and economic assistance to this objective, the US effectively tolerated the military’s encroachment on civilian authority.
Washington’s reluctance to condition the removal of Sudan’s designation from the SSTL on a fully civilian-led transition indicated a lower prioritization of democracy promotion relative to other objectives. While Congress passed a bill supporting democratic transition, it also required Sudan to pay compensation to the families of American victims of terrorist attacks linked to individuals previously hosted by Khartoum. Additionally, the Trump administration tied SSTL removal to Sudan’s normalization of relations with Israel (Berridge et al. Reference Berridge, Lynch, Makawi and de Waal2022, 131–33). As one American expert on the Horn of Africa described it, Sudan became “just a chess piece on the board of the Abraham Accords” (interview, Zoom, September 20, 2024). It took nearly a year for the Trump administration to remove Sudan from the SSTL—following both the payment of compensation and the normalization decision. This step facilitated Sudan’s access to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the clearance of substantial arrears to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, a process that had begun before the delisting (IMF 2020).
Addressing Sudan’s economic challenges also underscored a further dilemma: the tension between democratic transition and economic reforms, including the reform of military business enterprises. Confronted with a deepening economic crisis, the transitional government implemented unpopular reforms, including fuel subsidy cuts and exchange rate liberalization, while securing external funding for a cash transfer program aimed at cushioning vulnerable populations. Although these reforms were locally initiated, they were initially discussed with international financial institutions and the US administration, with the hope of securing their support. However, the reforms drew criticism for exacerbating economic hardship without addressing structural issues—namely, the military’s extractive practices and the deep inequalities between a marginalized periphery and an elite-dominated center. Alternative policy proposals from civil society were largely ignored by both the transitional government and donors, including the US. The implemented austerity measures fueled inflation—rising from 57% in 2019 to over 250% in November 2020—and led to the sharp depreciation of the Sudanese pound (Ali and Mann Reference Ali and Mann2023; Ali et al. Reference Ali, Alneel and Hassanain2024). In this context, the economic reforms undertaken by the transitional government not only deepened poverty, but also strained its relationship with the protest movement that had brought it to power (El-Gizouli Reference El-Gizouli2022). At the same time, they allowed the military to shift blame for economic mismanagement to the civilian government, even as its own business interests remained shielded from reform despite Hamdok’s calls to bring them under the Ministry of Finance. Donors, including the US, had called for better governance of state revenues (IMF 2020; Friends of Sudan 2020), but meaningful action was limited.
Following the October 2021 coup, the Biden administration responded by suspending financial assistance and imposing sanctions, including visa restrictions on Sudanese officials deemed to be undermining democratic transition. This pressure contributed to the signing of a new Framework Agreement between the military and civilian factions in November 2021. However, the agreement was criticized as another power-sharing deal that preserved an unworkable status quo and failed to challenge the military’s dominance (Knopf Reference Knopf2024). As the Sudanese activist Hala Al-Karib (Reference Al-Karib2024) put it, “recycling the same old power-sharing formula” based on securing power position for men in uniform who committed atrocities in the past was a “recipe for war” not for a stable democratic transition. The agreement collapsed two months later when Hamdok resigned, citing the failure to achieve consensus between civilian and military forces and among civilian forces.
In short, despite its declared commitment to a civilian-led transition, US diplomacy in post-Bashir Sudan reflected the enduring dilemmas of democracy promotion. These dilemmas were further complicated by Sudan’s pursuit of a triple transition: from authoritarianism to democracy, from war to peace, and from an exclusionary economic order to one that addresses historical injustices. Moreover, American policy was shaped by domestic bureaucratic politics and the waning influence of US constituencies with sustained interest in Sudan—two factors that the next section explores.
Domestic politics: Between public exhaustion and bureaucratic inertia
While traditional contradictions of democracy promotion impacted by Sudanese political dynamics have significantly shaped the contours of US policy during the post-Bashir transition, an equally important—though often overlooked—dimension lies within the US itself. This section turns to the domestic political and bureaucratic context that influenced American engagement with Sudan, focusing on the evolving role of congressional lobbies, and interagency dynamics within the US foreign policy apparatus.
Whereas a strong domestic lobby had once mobilized around the Sudanese crises—particularly in support of South Sudanese insurgents and to halt the Darfur genocide in the mid-2000s—no comparable constituency emerged over the past decade to prioritize democratic transition or end the ongoing war in Sudan. While the atrocities committed by the RSF during its conflict with the SAF, especially in Darfur, have evoked painful memories among some activists and lawmakers, the broad coalition that once coalesced around Darfur proved difficult to sustain over time. According to an American scholar, activist, and director of a project monitoring the ongoing war in Sudan (telephone interview, September 10, 2024), the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan in 2013 and threats to American aid workers led much of the US civil society to disengage from both South Sudan and Sudan more broadly. Religious groups turned inward to focus on domestic concerns, while human rights organizations became significantly less vocal. John Prendergast, a prominent activist on Sudan, echoed this assessment, citing widespread fatigue and disillusionment over the recurrence of crises in the same region. He also emphasized the sharp decline in funding compared to the millions once mobilized by the Darfur advocacy movement (interview, Zoom, October 17, Reference Prendergast2024).
This is not to say that advocacy for democracy and peace in Sudan has vanished. Human rights organizations periodically called on the Biden administration to hold both the SAF and RSF, along with their arms suppliers, accountable for war crimes; to increase humanitarian aid; and to bolster local civil society and human rights monitoring (e.g., Human Rights Watch 2023). A small number of bipartisan lawmakers raised related concerns. In the House of Representatives, two resolutions condemning the violence in Sudan and urging greater American engagement were introduced in July 2023 and January 2024 (US House of Representatives 2023, 2024a). In May 2024, eight Democrats and Republicans introduced a bill to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that would ban certain defense exports to the UAE, following reports of Emirati arms transfers to the RSF (US House of Representatives 2024b). Some of these lawmakers continued to pressure the administration to address the UAE’s role in high-level meetings.
Still, these efforts paled in comparison to the influence of the earlier Sudan lobby. They also lacked the institutional clout of senior national security advisors in the White House who opposed taking a harder line on the UAE, despite evidence of its military support to the RSF. According to a UN Security Council Panel of Experts, the UAE’s provision of advanced weapons had a “massive impact on the balance of forces on the ground, both in Darfur and in other regions” (United Nations Security Council 2024, 14–15). Yet senior advisors argued that the UAE’s central role in the Abraham Accords, the I2U2 initiative (India, Israel, UAE, US) (Sullivan Reference Sullivan2023a; Reference Sullivan2023b), and potential postwar Gaza stabilization efforts made it too valuable an ally to jeopardize. From this vantage point, the UAE was seen as a key player in the US strategic competition with China, especially in regions where American influence is under pressure. It is therefore unsurprising that, according to the aforementioned US scholar and activist (telephone interview, September 10, 2024), a senior national security official lobbied congressional Republicans to withdraw support for the bill restricting arms exports to the UAE. Despite concerns raised in bilateral meetings, the UAE was nonetheless formally designated a Major Defense Partner of the United States—second only to India.
This is not to discount a shift in tone among US diplomats. Senior State Department officials began publicly referencing Emirati involvement in Sudan’s conflict and citing congressional concerns (Perriello Reference Perriello2024a, Reference Perriello2024b; Phee Reference Phee2023). Yet this rhetorical shift did little to curb the UAE’s material support for the RSF, driven as it was by its own economic and geopolitical stakes in Sudan. Washington’s failure to exert meaningful pressure raised doubts about its stance toward the RSF itself. While US officials had long emphasized the need to integrate the RSF into the SAF and expressed concern about its deployment in Khartoum (James Reference James2019; Perriello Reference Perriello2024a), the lack of action to halt Emirati arms transfers sent mixed signals. As a political analyst put it, the US appeared to be tacitly empowering the RSF (interview with Amany Al-Taweel, Cairo, July 3, Reference Al-Taweel2024). This continued external support also undermined the effectiveness of US sanctions on RSF leaders.
Bureaucratic politics is another domestic factor that has been largely overlooked in debates on US policy toward Sudan. Multiple Sudanese officials and American experts observed that Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee sought to centralize control over the Sudan portfolio (interviews with El-Shafei, Cairo, May 29, Reference Khidir2024; Amgad Eltayeb, Cairo, July 21, Reference Eltayeb2024; and a US Horn of Africa expert, Zoom, September 20, 2024). A Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing highlighted this issue, noting that memos warning of escalating SAF–RSF tensions and possible war were diluted and never reached the Secretary of State (US Senate 2023). Rather than fostering interagency collaboration or exploring alternative strategies, US policy was driven by a narrow circle of officials—reflecting a conservative bureaucratic culture averse to risk and policy shifts (interview with John Prendergast, October 17, Reference Prendergast2024). Tensions also surfaced between Phee, who supported the post-coup Framework Agreement to restore civilian-military partnership, and Feltman, who advocated a tougher line against the generals. Feltman resigned in January 2022, less than a year into his role (African Intelligence 2022), followed shortly by David Satterfield, whose four-month tenure left a diplomatic vacuum at a critical juncture.
The appointment of a new Special Envoy for Sudan in February 2024, under pressure from Congress, addressed some of these bureaucratic shortcomings—but came too late to alter the course of US policy. With only a six-month mandate and the US presidential election on the horizon, Tom Perriello focused on two objectives: reaching a ceasefire and improving humanitarian access, while laying groundwork for a longer-term political process. He expanded regional engagement by shifting from the Jeddah platform (led by the US and Saudi Arabia) to Geneva-based talks that included Egypt, the UAE, the African Union, and the UN, forming the Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan (ALPS) Group in August 2024. Still, as Hudson (Reference Hudson2024) noted, a ceasefire remained unlikely without a broader political settlement clarifying the roles and immunities of SAF and RSF leaders.
Perriello also stressed avoiding the mistakes of previous transitions. He rejected power-sharing between what he termed “bad actors”—a label applying to the SAF, RSF, and hardline Islamists from the former regime (Perriello Reference Perriello2024a). Yet it remained unclear how warring parties would be incentivized to accept a ceasefire under these terms. He also promoted a cost-imposition strategy against those fueling the war (Perriello Reference Perriello2024a, Reference Perriello2024b), though little was done to implement it, especially regarding external enablers—again reflecting the prioritization of broader strategic alliances.
In an effort to address past criticisms of a narrow civilian outreach, the new envoy expanded contacts with a wider range of political and civil society actors—including critics of the FFC-Central Council (later rebranded as Taqadom) (interview with Al-Hindi Al-Rayah, Cairo, June 3, Reference Al-Rayah2024). However, given the lack of progress toward a political settlement, these broader consultations yielded limited results. As noted by a Washington-based policy analyst advising the envoy (interview, November 14, 2024), questions around legitimacy and representation—including whether Islamist actors outside the former NCP should be included—remained unresolved.
In short, despite efforts to recalibrate US policy through the appointment of a new envoy, limited domestic advocacy, entrenched bureaucratic patterns, and the prioritization of strategic partnerships with regional actors by national security strategists undermined American efforts to end the war and support Sudan’s democratic transition.
Conclusions
The paper contributes to the current policy and scholarly debates about the US’s Sudan policy. In doing so, it argued that focusing on the changing international and regional geopolitics in Sudan, and the prioritization of other crises on America’s foreign policy agenda is not enough to understand Washington’s limited influence in post-Bashir political dispensation. Rather than reflecting momentary wishful thinking or bad judgement, US policy towards the December 2018 democratic uprising and its aftermath can be understood through the lens of democracy promotion and its many contradictions. While the US rhetorically supported a civilian-led transition, its approach remained deeply shaped by long-standing dilemmas in its democracy promotion doctrine, including competing strategic interests, skepticism toward popular uprisings, and a reliance on elite-level negotiations. In Sudan’s case, these contradictions were heightened by the complexity of the transition itself—one that simultaneously involved democratization, peacemaking, and economic restructuring in a fragile and fragmented state. Rather than fully leveraging the political momentum of the protest movement or conditioning support on civilian leadership, the US ultimately endorsed a military-civilian partnership that preserved the power of armed actors and failed to address structural inequalities inherited from the old regime.
The paper also argued that understanding US engagement with Sudan requires examining domestic drivers within the United States itself. Bureaucratic dynamics, particularly within the State Department and National Security Council, shaped the formation and implementation of policy, often narrowing the scope of options available. Meanwhile, the domestic advocacy base that had once mobilized around Sudan’s crises has significantly diminished over the past decade. Congressional efforts to push for greater accountability and humanitarian engagement were largely symbolic, as more powerful national security officials prioritized relationships with strategic allies like the UAE, despite their role in fueling Sudan’s war. These internal constraints limited the capacity of the US’s to respond effectively to the unfolding crisis, even as it professed a commitment to democratic norms.
By examining these internal constraints, the paper also adds to the broader scholarship on democracy promotion by foregrounding domestic political and bureaucratic factors that have often been overlooked in existing literature. Ultimately, the case of Sudan underscores the need for a more coherent and accountable democracy promotion strategy that not only aligns rhetoric with practice but also integrates a deeper understanding of domestic constraints—both in the target country and within the US foreign policy system. Without confronting the inertia within its own policy machinery and reassessing the tradeoffs it has long tolerated, the US risks repeating its past mistakes—not only in Sudan but across other contexts where democracy, peace, and stability are all at stake.
Finally, on a policy level, it is worth emphasizing that the way US national security strategists have assessed American interests in Sudan has in fact undermined—rather than advanced—US strategic objectives in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea region. The failure to halt the ongoing war between the RSF and SAF—particularly by not exerting sufficient pressure on regional actors fueling the conflict—has created openings for US rivals and adversaries to expand their influence in the Red Sea in exchange for support to the SAF. Russia, which had previously trained the RSF and partnered with the group to exploit Sudan’s gold resources, has drawn closer to the SAF. In exchange for supplying weapons and ammunition, Moscow secured an agreement to establish a “military, technical, and logistical support center” on Sudan’s Red Sea coast (Asharq Al-Awsat 2024). Although the SAF initially froze negotiations with Russia after the 2019 regime change—halting talks that began under Al-Bashir—it has now turned to Moscow to bolster its military capabilities in response to the UAE’s support for the RSF.
The SAF has also turned to Iran for support. In July 2024, Al-Burhan decided to restore diplomatic relations with Tehran after an eight-year rupture (Al Jazeera 2024). This rapprochement could have serious implications for Middle East dynamics—a region of long-standing US strategic interest—given Sudan’s historic ties to Iran and its role in hosting Iranian-backed resistance movements, including Palestinian groups. The strategic implications of the SAF’s evolving alliances with Russia and Iran are significant. The US has long emphasized the importance of ensuring maritime security in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab, and has deployed military assets to deter Houthi attacks on shipping routes. While Washington has expressed concern over Russian and Iranian involvement in Sudan, there is a prevailing belief that US regional allies will act as a “firewall” to prevent Sudan’s deeper alignment with these adversaries (interview with Donald Booth, November 7, Reference Booth2024), or that the issue can be managed through coordination with regional actors, particularly given that American diplomacy is “stretched too thin” (interview with US diplomat, November 14, 2024). However, history suggests that Khartoum’s involvement in regional conflicts against US allies cannot be ruled out. Outsourcing Washington’s diplomacy in Sudan to its regional allies—particularly the UAE—by giving them a free hand to shape Sudan’s political trajectory, or by accepting the country’s descent into chaos and fragmentation as collateral for cooperation with these allies on other issues and in other regions amid global geopolitical tensions, will entail significant strategic costs.
Meanwhile, the second Trump administration has sent mixed signals regarding its approach to the Sudan conflict. On the one hand, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Sudan as the next focal point for US peace diplomacy following the mediated agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. Yet, if that agreement is any indication, a US-brokered deal in Sudan under Trump is likely to be another elite-driven arrangement—potentially ending the violence, but failing to engage diverse civilian forces and address the underlying causes of conflict. Moreover, Rubio’s statement came shortly after the administration imposed new sanctions on Sudan, including export restrictions and a suspension of aid, in response to the SAF’s reported use of chemical weapons against the RSF. This step reinforced the perception that the UAE—widely regarded as a key political and economic partner of the Trump administration—continues to exert significant influence over US policy toward Sudan.
On the humanitarian front, the war has triggered what is now the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. While the Biden administration significantly increased aid to refugees and internally displaced Sudanese, these efforts have done little to improve the image of the US in the region. The assistance has been dismissed in some quarters as “humanitarian gaslighting”—an attempt by the US and its regional partners to whitewash their complicity in the conflict (Khair Reference Khair2024)—or simply a symbolic gesture meant to show action during the administration’s final months (Elamin Reference Elamin2024). Under the second Trump administration, although humanitarian aid was exempted from the new sanctions, its broader decision to reduce foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid, threatens to further tarnish the credibility of US diplomacy in Sudan.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their comments on the first draft of this paper.
