SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Persuasion – Why No One Will Save Sudan,

5/6/2024: Persuasion – Why No One Will Save Sudan, by Cameron Hudson

Cameron Hudson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies explains why Sudan is deprioritised by the West.

Hudson notes that the wars in Ukraine and Gaza “where Western governments have far greater strategic interests at stake” are absorbing so much of the media’s attention, donor dollars, and policymaker time, that little is left to devote to Sudan.

While the US president George Bush administration prioritised Darfur during 2003-2008 despite being fully immersed in two ground wars and a “global war on terror,” Hudson attributes this to genocide prevention resonating more with US policymakers given the proximity to genocides in Rwanda and Kosovo.

Hudson attributes the absence of serious discussion about an intervention force in Darfur to lessons of US “overreach” including “two decades of terror-fighting deployments” and Libya’s state collapse, which made the US confront “unpleasant realities of the full application of a responsibility to protect doctrine”.