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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 mean you should take this write up with a grain of salt as Dean is pretty openly a pro US neocon, who regularly argues pretty loudly for US foreign military interests. Before I get dogpiled just read their posting history, it's almost all they comment on while staying out of all the other juicy western culture war topics the rest of us are suckers for. All countries involved in proxy wars have their own internal issues and politics that factor.

On the other hand there are 3 places in the world in which Russia has / plans to have a foreign naval base. Sevastopol in Crimea, Tartus in Syria and a planned base in Sudan. Syria was clearly a proxy war, Ukraine is, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

The red sea sees a trillion dollars pass through each year and is of huge geostrategic importance. I think the 1st and only foreign naval base China has in in Djibouti. So there is plenty of incentive for the US to be manipulating things behind the scenes. Even if they haven't clearly backed a specific separatist force yet.

I mean you should take this write up with a grain of salt as Dean is pretty openly a pro US neocon, who regularly argues pretty loudly for US foreign military interests.

I'm sure this is based on a well founded history of posting despite my being on the opposite advocacy side of pretty much every neocon-endorsed war of the last 25 years, and not at all trying to smuggle in pejoratives because of my long-established contempt of Putin and regular disagreements with the Russian apologists or tankie types on matters of historical objectivity or international dynamic characterization.

Before I get dogpiled just read their posting history, it's almost all they comment on while staying out of all the other juicy western culture war topics the rest of us are suckers for.

What makes this funny is that the very last person to reference me did so for... my media reviews at the old site, which were far more forthcoming because the Reddit-motte did more culture-media talk in the main forum, and because Reddit was where I already was more often for my other hobbies, and where I still spend most of my time.

'Just read their posting history' is a basic information input error, because if you read the posting history I still have from the Reddit, you'll see I'm often not here because of time I spend instead on video games. Reading this forum post history wouldn't indicate that, nor would it indicate the job changes or other life actions. Nor would it reflect how the discussion of the Motte has changed since the migration, with an increase of topics (especially chatGPT and AI) that I have never expressed particular interest in. Nor would it reflect my own attempts to change how much time I spend on this forum for other reasons, which in turn would drive changes in what material I spend time on. Nor would it various real-life reasons I have been offline in general for the last few months.

Yes, I find international politics more interesting than chatGPT or AI recursion. I find the conflicts between actually different cultures the most part of a culture-discussion forum with an international spread of participants. I also have more experience on inter-cultural, as opposed to intra-cultural conflicts, and especially those related to military-government relations, than most. I find these subjects interesting, and when the topic comes up I'll chime in if someone asks a question or says something I think obfusicates more than informs. On topics like AI which I find less interesting, I've expressed my views in the past, and moved on to let more passionate people continue with the things they find.

All countries involved in proxy wars have their own internal issues and politics that factor.

The distinction is that cultural chauvinists are self-centered to a degree that they act or believe that their interests and influence are what dominate other people's conflicts. They do this in a variety of ways, such as characterizing domestic power grabs between warlords as foreign proxy wars which remove agency outside of the local actors and reframe conflicts so that local actors are of secondary importance and can be generalized and brushed away.

I have a long pattern of viewing this sort of framing as analytical malpractice.

On the other hand there are 3 places in the world in which Russia has / plans to have a foreign naval base. Sevastopol in Crimea, Tartus in Syria and a planned base in Sudan. Syria was clearly a proxy war, Ukraine is, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Then I would posit you should probably learn what a goose is, because that's not a duck.

This is where I refer back to my point about the sort of cultural chauvenism that tries to make other people's conflicts about the US. Syria was indeed a proxy war... but not between the US and Russia. Syria was an excellent example of the practical implications of the Obama-era policy of trying to off-shore the middle east and lead-from-behind so that the US would have a less direct role, which in turn led to the Turks and the Arabs and the Iranians all taking the lead and setting conditions that the US then reacted to. Syria pre-ISIS was an excellent case study in how minor and middle powers compete to shape the action, or inaction, of a larger outside power, with various parties trying to draw in the US, and others to keep it out, and how varying degrees of support and sympathy can be elicited or hindered. The formal American intervention in Syria was not because of, in response to, or a result of Russia- it was a result of local actors, specifically ISIS, who themselves were not a result of Russia or the cause of Russia's own intervention.

If someone wanted to raise Syria as a proxy war between Russia and Turkey or Saudi Arabia for control of the Mediterranean port, that would be a defensible line of argument. Unlike the US, which infamously backed down from Obama's own red line and was in fits over what sort of aid it could give anyone, the Turks actually tried to overthrow the Assad regime. They provided far more significant military aid to those they judged most directly supporting, they provided operational safe havens, and they repeatedly considered- and actually did- directly intervene to keep their proxies in the fight. The Arabs attempted similar, and it was precisely their favored groups that got the most resistance from within the US government. The Americans puttered rather than come to a policy decision of what goals to pursue, and ultimately let the Arabs and the Turks take the lead until ISIS overran north-western Iraq.

A framing that tries to fit Syria into a broader US-Russia competition makes sense from a Russian perspective, because the Russians are fixated on the US like that, but it doesn't actually reflect the actors of relative import on the ground, or even the American perspective. To Russia, something like the the battle of Khasham may occur because it is in a proxy war with the US and the US has it out to get them. To the United States, something like the battle of Khasham can occur because, to quote Mattis, "The Russian high command in Syria assured us it was not their people, and my direction to the chairman was for the force, then, to be annihilated. And it was."

Notably, Khasham is about as far from the Syrian coast as you can be. An American attempt to drive the Russians off the sea board it was not.

The red sea sees a trillion dollars pass through each year and is of huge geostrategic importance. I think the 1st and only foreign naval base China has in in Djibouti. So there is plenty of incentive for the US to be manipulating things behind the scenes. Even if they haven't clearly backed a specific separatist force yet.

This is an example of combining banalities with conspiratorial lack of analysis. The Red Sea is indeed very important- but a naval base is not a 'turn off all trade for a year' button, the horn of Africa is a region where the Americans have supported other militaries developing a naval presence to deal with piracy such as the Somali pirate surge years ago, and the Djibouti dynamics are so different from the Sudan dynamics in international affairs terms that this is an heavy-handed motte and bailey.

Moreover, it supports no claim, or counter-claim, in Sudan. 'The US has an incentive to manipulate' is not a substitute for 'the US was manipulating things from behind the scenes,' particularly when ongoing US 'manipulation' was open, overt, and internationally coordinated negotiations... which have been derailed by the recent coup.

This is pejorative in search of an accusation, which I condemn on grounds of obscuring actual truth-seeking, and more to the point its pejorative style that fixates on the US to the eclipsing of other equally or even more relevant actors, like the Europeans- who have reorganized their Africa policy on migrant flow terms- or the Saudis- who were one of the few groups close to the pre-2019 coup government which supported them in Yemen- and others.

I find this bad foreign policy analysis. I don't object to it on neocon grounds- I object to it because I find the arguments sophomoric.

The formal American intervention in Syria was not because of, in response to, or a result of Russia- it was a result of local actors, specifically ISIS, who themselves were not a result of Russia or the cause of Russia's own intervention.

Formal has a lot of meaning resting on it. The CIA was funnelling weapons and funds to Syrian rebels before ISIS was even a thing, back in 2012 and (it is argued) 2011. They exploited the collapse of Libya (another US operation) to send arms from Libyan caches to Syria.

Christopher Phillips, The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East, (Yale University Press, 2016), 139, 143

The goal was to topple Assad from day 1. The US was egging the Turks on, helping the inept Saudis administrate their own proxy war. Besides, who stands behind Qatar and Saudi Arabia anyway, who supplies the arms they sent on? Qatar is not known for its flourishing domestic arms industry.

Furthermore, there's a long history of US involvement in Sudan, they've been bombing and sanctioning and harassing and providing aid to Sudan for decades. It's not so much that the US has an incentive in manipulating, it's that the US has been, is and will continue to manipulate and mess with Sudan.

Leaving small countries on the other side of the world to their own devices - impossible challenge for America!

The goal was to topple Assad from day 1. The US was egging the Turks on, helping the inept Saudis administrate their own proxy war. Besides, who stands behind Qatar and Saudi Arabia anyway, who supplies the arms they sent on? Qatar is not known for its flourishing domestic arms industry.

Qatar and Saudi are, however, known for having a lot of money to spend on arms, and pursuing their own regional interests. This goes back to eclipsing other party's agencies by attributing their agency to the US as a puppet-master, as opposed to alignment of interests.

Few, if anyone, in the US were going to sympathisize with Assad. But no one in the US government had the institutional consensus to actually determine a goal. 'Topple Assad' is not an end-goal in US policy terms, it is a means to the end, but that lack of clear end-state is what kept the Americans indecisive even as the Turks and the Saudis actually funeled what they could as they could. If 'topple Assad' was the goal, the US military could have acted, the US aid could have centered to specific groups, the US support for Saudi or Ankara could have expanded rather than throttled over islamic extremist concerns.

Furthermore, there's a long history of US involvement in Sudan, they've been bombing and sanctioning and harassing and providing aid to Sudan for decades. It's not so much that the US has an incentive in manipulating, it's that the US has been, is and will continue to manipulate and mess with Sudan.

Note the transfer of the subject of what is actually being discussed. Gone is discussion of the specific conflict in Sudan, going on right now- now this is a general 'the US is present and has an influence,' and more than that a conflation of all sorts of measures of interaction as a commonality rather than a series of different relationship states and reasons. The US having a presence and an influence was never disputed, however- rather, the relevance of presence to this specific conflict was the argument, which is not actually addressed or challenged by conflating decades of history.

This goes back to the cultural chauvenism of it not all being about the Americans. Lots of people have long history with Sudan. The Americans are not the most relevant part of Sudan. The Americans are not the most relevant party to understand what is going on now. Stop inviting the Americans to live in your headspace free of charge. Other people in other parts of the world are quite capable of making their own bad decisions without it being driven by American influence.

Leaving small countries on the other side of the world to their own devices - impossible challenge for America!

By the standards you set, everyone with any sort of positive and/or negative interaction with Sudan is a form of interference. It's a meaningless jab when you set the bar so low.

If 'topple Assad' was the goal, the US military could have acted

It did act - just in an indecisive and ineffectual way and against stronger than expected opposition. There are still US troops in Syria today, doing their best to prevent any complete resolution of the conflict now that Assad has won. US sanctions are preventing most reconstruction work. US aid did eventually settle on the Kurds, who are hated by nearly all their neighbours. This is a perfect example of why interfering in these places is such a bad idea. The more interference you do, the fewer friends you make.

Note the transfer of the subject of what is actually being discussed.

It is not unreasonable to predict that, since the US has been interfering and influencing Sudan for decades, it will continue to do so and use the current crisis (and the arrival of US troops) to increase its interference. Sure, it's appropriate to use troops to get your embassy personnel out but how long are those troops going to stay there?

By the standards you set, everyone with any sort of positive and/or negative interaction with Sudan is a form of interference. It's a meaningless jab when you set the bar so low.

Yes - it's a small, poor country very far from the US. There is no good reason to be so interested in what happens there. These small, poor and irrelevant countries should be left to their own devices. And the US has been aggressively sanctioning parts of the Al-Burhan government, including the police. They've been trying to undermine it for some time - the US bears some responsibility for the conflict.