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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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In the Small-Scale Question threat, user @sickamore raised a question about Sudan. Given that it's more global news, but also tangential to culture war narratives, I figured I might raise it here. sickamore did ask for a good low down. Sadly, please accept a bad one because bad news is the easiest to quibble over, and sharing my newest reason to be depressed is supposed to be helpful or something.

Also, forgive the inconsistent citations, these are intended to be handy, not authoritative.

To start with sickamore's question:

The new conflict that broke out in Sudan - anyone have a good low down on what is happening there, and why? Is this truly a proxy-war between the US and Russia (Rapid Support Forces being Russian proxy, I guess? And Sudan Armed Forces would be US allies..?), or is there something else to this?

To start- this is not a bad question, but it is the wrong question, for a pretty basic reason: this is not about you. Or the US. Or Russia.

What is going in Sudan is a practical demonstration that being a global power does not mean that everything going on in the world is secretly about you. When I've raised in the past in other contexts that a certain sort of American cultural chauvenism that sees everything as an extension of American politics, this is what I refer to. The Sudan crisis has foreign actors and influences, yes, but it is fundamentally an internal political crisis driven by internal actors, with their own interests, their own agency... and their own lack of self-control, because you tend not to shoot at the French diplomatic convoy you already said you were willing to help leave if you have actually good control of your forces.

They don't, because this is Sudan, and Sudan is experiencing the sort of 'the government is the internationally recognized warlords, and the warlords are fighting again' conflict that bedevils foreign policy.

First, to set the context...

For the Americans and others who couldn't find Sudan on a map if they didn't know where to look: Sudan is in Northeast the country between Egypt and Ethiopia at the Horn of Africa, across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia. It's part of the not-great part of Africa.

Sudan has basically been a military junta in one form or another since the 90s, and not the western-backed sort, though over the last few years there's been a detente of sort since a new military junta came to power and more or less offered to help normalize relations.

Here's a wiki summary, but the super high level feel free to quibble is-

In 1989, the political system of Sudan was "rigorously restructured" following a military coup when Omar al-Bashir, then a brigadier in the Sudanese Army, led a group of officers and ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. Under al-Bashir's leadership, the new military government suspended political parties and introduced an Islamic legal code on the national level.

In the 2000s and 2010s, there was a war in Darfur you might have heard about due to the various crimes against humanity and horrific humanitarian crisis and stuff. The militia that fought on the Sudanese government side are broadly grouped/affiliated with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and are accused of war crimes. 'Crimes against Humanity' war crimes.

What you might not have known is that there is gold in those killing fields, and naturally the side with the militia to control the gold gets to profit. The RSF starts to take off as a political force, and an economic force, due to control of the gold. It also branches off to other profitable ventures, like mercenary work. Anyone familiar with the international overlap of gold interests and mercenary work may recognize some similarities with certain Russian interest groups. Yes, there is a Russian connection. But back to history.

On April 11, 2019, al-Bashir and his government were overthrown in a military coup led by his first vice president and defense minister, who then established the now ruling military junta, led by Lt. General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan. The RSF under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, often known as Hemetti, supported Burhan in the coup and suppressing post-coup protests, including the Khartoum massacre.

After the 2019 coup, Sudan’s government was led by the Sovereign Council, a military-civilian body that is the highest power in the transitional government. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is the civilian leader of the cabinet. This means he is not actually the leader. The Chairman of the Sovereignty Council is General Abdel Fattah Burhan of the SAF, who is backed by Hemetti, leader of the RSF.

In October 2020, Sudan made an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel, as part of the agreement the United States removed Sudan from the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

On 25 October 2021, the Sovereignty Council and the Sudanese government were immensely dissolved after being overthrown in the 2021 Sudan coup.

Surprise surprise, the leader to come out on top again is... General Burhan of the SAF, backed by Hemetti and the RSF.

Which brings us closer to present. As part of broader western normalization and diplomatic rehabilitation, the premise of Sudan politics is that it isn't an indefinite permanent military junta, but a transition government that will, eventually, place the military under civilian rule.

This will naturally be a long and arduous process, but western support actually does demand the military itself to be consolidated, so that things like the Darfure crisis and the humanitarian castrophe that supports mass migration not happen. Which means that the Sudan Armed Forces would need to reign in and control the paramilitary militia of the Rapid Support Forces, who have a nasty history of suppressing. Which means that the RSF, rather than being an autonomous power broker with great autonomy, would be controlled by the Sudanese military, and General Burhan. Who- if he controls the RSF- would also control what the RSF controls. Like, say, gold mines.

Naturally, RSF Commander Hemetti is a patriot and a self-admitted supporter of civilian government rule, which is why earlier this month he allegedly* attempted to coup General Burhan.

I say allegedly here, because Hemetti claimed it was really Burhan and the SAF who did dirty first, but I will note that the RSF took a couple hundred Egyptian soldiers prisoner in the first day(s) of the war, which tends not to be the sort of thing that you do on accident if you're just responding.

(It does, however, make quite a sense if you have pre-meditated intent to coup the close ally/partner of the regional military partner, and thus throw one of the few military powers capable of intervening against you into a decision paralysis that keeps them from intervening against you.).

Note that this is all very western centric, and doesn't include things like how Egypt and Sudan are oriented against the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam, only mentioned the gold and russian connection when I went off script, and doesn't even touch the various arab world implications. This is just a really, really ugly history.

Here's the Dean Summary:

In 1989, there was a coup. The military junta styled itself in islamic theocracy.

In the 2000s/2010s, Sudan was a pariah state that made itself infamous in the Darfur conflict, where the RSF was a tool of suppression and humanitarian atrocities using paramilitary militia.

In the 2010s, the RSF got rich and powerful off of using its paramilitary militia to seize control of gold and other economic interests in Darfur.

In 2019, there was a new military coup led by General Burhan of the SAF, who was supported by Dagalo, leader of the paramilitary RSF. The new government ingratiates itself with the west by relaxing from the pariah policies.

In 2021, General Burhan of the SAF launches another coup, again with the support of Dagalo and the RSF. The new new government sustains western toleration/acceptance by going through negotiations of a transition to civilian government.

In 2022, western attention / negotiations for negotiation focus on consolidating the military under future civilian control. This includes consolidating the RSF under SAF control, which in turn means control of the gold and economic interests Hemetti had built up.

In April 2023, a week and a half ago, Hemetti and the RSF attempted a coup against General Burhan and the SAF with an attempted takeover of the capital of Khartoum. It failed to oust him, and the conflict looks ready to go into a sustained civil war with massive humanitarian implications.

That was an ugly history. I'll give an even worse response to the original question next.

Thanks for the rundown! Very informative!

The only reason I brought up the US/Russian angle (and really why I wanted to learn more) is that there's been some posts on twitter around how Victoria Nuland (USA) had visited (though I couldn't find a trace of that in 2023), and that the US Ambassador to Sudan made some statement warning against Sudan giving a red sea port to Russia (now looking for more sources, I cannot find this interview either, only quotes of it - let me know if anyone finds the original!)

So maybe it's just anti-american trolls drumming attention to some conspiracy and there's no real backing in reality. Still learned a lot from your posts and links. Thanks.

I have to say, it's amusing to me the way pro-Russian/anti-American people online have turned Victoria Nuland into the modern-day Bismarck, able to take down governments and change the political winds with a single visit.

This is a pretty obvious weakman. The steelman is that Nuland being involved in an region is indictative of larger US interest and involvement in the region, of which Nuland herself is just one part of the effort. It's not like Nuland is acting by herself, a one woman agency - there are powerful USA agencies and actors as part of the foreign policy apparatus.

Nuland's current job is Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, which is the highest-ranking member of the US Foreign Service and fourth-highest person in the state department. 'There are powerful USA agencies involved wherever she goes' is tautological, but also not the actual argument, because most people raising Nuland don't actually know her current job or its roles, and only know her from Ukraine during Maidan due to the effort of the Russians to paint her involvement as part of a coup.

In practice, her current job is to be the eye of Sauron and go look at whatever the biggest flashy thing is, only instead of the Sauron it's the US State Department, and instead of ringwraiths it's still the State Department, and in terms of powerful USA agencies in wartorn countries, the State Department, isn't.

Nuland going to a country is generally to endorse what lower functionaries have already done, in which she has no generative role in change, or in a contingency going to represent the Secretary of State and the POTUS, in which case she's also not the generator of change. Nuland doesn't set policy, she executes it, which is different from the power Bismarck had in his heyday.