Egypt’s relationship with Sudan’s political order has never been a neutral or merely advisory one; it has historically been constitutive. From the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium period to post-independence politics, Cairo has regarded Sudan not simply as a neighboring state but as a strategic extension of its own national security sphere. This has given Egypt a durable incentive to shape Sudan’s governing architecture in ways that ensure predictability, compliance, and above all the preservation of centralized state authority. Historically, this has involved supporting Sudanese elites and military figures aligned with Egyptian interests, influencing constitutional debates, and opposing political trajectories – particularly revolutionary or democratic mass-mobilized civilian movements – that might introduce popular democracy or ideological unpredictability. In many respects, the present mirrors the past: Egypt continues to prefer a Sudan governed by predictable institutions anchored in the army rather than one liberated by plural, civilian forces whose policy direction Cairo cannot confidently control.

In the current crisis, Egypt does not explicitly articulate opposition to civilian governance. Its language is framed through appeals to stability, sovereignty, and territorial unity. It rejects initiatives that establish “parallel governments” or “civilian transitions”, insisting instead on the primacy of existing – largely military-dominated – institutions. This rhetorical positioning is politically consequential. By declaring only the presently constituted state institutions legitimate, Egypt entrenches the Sudanese Armed Forces as the indispensable guardian of Sudanese sovereignty while marginalizing emergent civilian authority. At the same time, Cairo participates in broader regional peace frameworks that ostensibly commit to ceasefires, humanitarian access, negotiations, and a transitional process that eventually yields civilian rule. The phrasing is significant: Egypt does not deny the desirability of civilian governance; it simply subordinates it to a prior condition – security consolidation. For Sudanese civilians who have lived under repeated deferments of democratic transition since 2019, this conditionality often registers not as sequencing, but as perpetual postponement.

The United States has grown increasingly explicit in articulating a contrasting emphasis. Through repeated diplomatic messaging, including recent State Department statements admonishing Sudan’s military leadership for privileging “military solutions” over negotiated political settlement, Washington has foregrounded both humanitarian urgency and political accountability. The United States frames the crisis as fundamentally political, not merely military, insisting on negotiations that lead to a permanent ceasefire, humanitarian corridors, and a credible pathway toward civilian participation in governance. Beneath the formal diplomatic tone lies a clear frustration: American policymakers increasingly doubt that Sudan’s military leadership will relinquish meaningful power voluntarily and fear that a perpetual militarized order will entrench instability rather than resolve it.

Yet the dynamic is not simply a binary tension between Egypt and the United States. Sudan’s crisis unfolds within a dense regional geopolitical environment. Egypt and Saudi Arabia broadly emphasize safeguarding state institutions and preventing Sudan’s fragmentation. The UAE, meanwhile, has been widely reported as sympathetic to the RSF, adding another axis of external influence shaping the battlefield and political negotiations. These rival alignments transform Sudan into a geopolitical theatre where peace frameworks do not merely mediate Sudanese conflict but also encode regional power contests. This complicates any linear movement toward civilian transition: even when the United States, and other regional actors jointly sign onto frameworks calling for humanitarian truces and eventual civilian governance, their strategic priorities diverge in practice.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian catastrophe continues to deepen. Millions face displacement, famine conditions, and atrocities in war-torn regions, underscoring the human cost of diplomatic inertia. Negotiations, even when backed by powerful regional actors, remain fragile and repeatedly stall. The Sudanese Armed Forces, though militarily strained, remain politically entrenched and resistant to concessions that would dilute their authority, and thereby Egyptian influence – while Egypt continues to serve as a crucial external pillar reinforcing their legitimacy, just as it historically reinforced military centrality in Sudanese politics.

What ultimately emerges is a pattern of continuity rather than rupture. Egypt’s present-day policy toward Sudan is not an aberration but an extension of a much longer historical tradition of strategic interference in Sudan’s political architecture. Then, as now, Egypt privileges order, hierarchy, and institutional control over democratic uncertainty. The United States, conversely, increasingly frames stability as impossible without civilian empowerment. Between these competing logics lies Sudan’s suspended political future. Until civilian authority is treated not as a deferred aspiration but as an immediate prerequisite for peace, and until regional actors converge not merely in rhetoric but in strategic intent around that principle, Sudan’s transition will remain indefinitely postponed. Civilian governance will continue to exist primarily as diplomatic language rather than attainable political reality, while the people of Sudan bear the burden of a war and a political paralysis they neither authored nor consented to.

By Horn Review Editorial