The fall of the U.S. led peace talks in Washington in July 2025 is a big setback to the ongoing peace talks to end the 30 year old civil war in Sudan. Although there were months of shuttle diplomacy and consultations in the region, the main issue remained: competing visions of post war governance and especially the role of military institutions in the post war governance. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, have radically divergent expectations for a power-sharing arrangement.
In the beginning of 2025, a unilateral declaration of a parallel government by the RSF further worsened underlying tensions and undermined the SAF’s assumed right to have a centralized state of affairs. The efforts to harmonize these stances into a single transition framework languished due to the inclusion of one clause that in effect diminished the long-term influence of the military in the governance process. Although this provision was framed in a manner suggesting that a transition to civilian government was coming, it was strongly opposed by Egypt, which had interests in Sudan and a close relationship with the country’s military leaders. Egypt’s veto of the clause during the Washington ministerial negotiations effectively halted progress.
The Role of Regional Actors in Shaping Negotiation Dynamics
Egypt’s Security-Centric Concerns
The posture of Egypt can be explained by the ideological as well as practical considerations of security. The nation has also played the role of protecting strong central governments in the adjoining nations because it may be unstable to have political vacuums along the southern border which may impact its role in Nile water security. To Cairo, any post-war settlement of Sudan that marginalizes SAF threatens to give impetus to non-state actors and create an overall situation of insecurity in the region.
Gulf States and Divergent Gulf Agendas
Both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, who are the two financially vested interests in the reconstruction of the post-war Sudan, have taken a more reformist outlook wherein they are keen on less role playing by military factions in the state. The UAE is said to have supported civilian drives, whereas Riyadh has tried to play a mediatory role between the two sides, and has played off its interest against Sudan in its largely divided political landscape.
This difference in the region formed an intricate context in which the U.S mediation occurred. In July 2025, the peace talks are to be the final stage where a ceasefire is to be agreed upon and the transition mechanism to be established; this was rather a stage of regional disagreement which ended up delaying the process to the end.
The Humanitarian Fallout of Diplomatic Collapse
Intensifying Crisis and Limited Access
The collapse of the peace initiatives has short-term impacts on the humanitarian conditions in Sudan. As one of the displacement crises in the world, growing at an alarming rate with almost 11 million people forcibly displaced, humanitarian organizations are held back by inaccessibility and persisting conflict regions. A surge in basic services remains substandard in the major areas such as Darfur and Khartoum where they were targeted or have been abandoned.
By July 2025, the United Nations had predicted famine in three of the country provinces affected by conflict and made worse by closed-down aid paths and the absence of ceasefire assurances. The collapse of the peace talks impedes the possibility of implementing the humanitarian corridors, which had been considered as part of the overall transition framework.
Governance Paralysis and Political Fragmentation
Sudan’s competing authorities—SAF in Port Sudan and the RSF-backed administration in Darfur—have both resisted international pressure to negotiate a power-sharing roadmap that includes civilian actors. The absence of a unified political authority has paralyzed national institutions, leading to delays in international financial support, security sector reform, and basic governance services such as tax collection and civil registry.
Power-sharing discussions were expected to define roles for a civilian transitional council, mechanisms for military integration, and a pathway to elections by 2026. Without agreement, these milestones are now indefinitely postponed.
U.S. Diplomatic Limitations and Strategy Shifts
Washington’s Calculated Retreat
The Biden and Trump administrations both sought, with varying intensity, to reassert U.S. diplomatic leadership in Africa. In 2025, the Trump administration adopted a more realistic, hard-power policy that focused on the issue of counterterrorism stability and on energy security. The peace talks formed part of this larger strategy to hydraulic a spillage of the region and respond to advancing Russian and Chinese clout in the Horn of Africa.
With regards to this strategic interest, Washington has shown inability to mediate regional poles, particularly over Egyptian demands but to no avail has US control over the region manifested. U.S. authorities have indicated that they will continue to engage, albeit with a reshaping of efforts towards smaller, deconcentrated operations to include humanitarian corridors, local ceasefires and stabilisation plans, regional stability plans to caretake refugees.
Regional Institutions and Multilateral Paralysis
The African Union which ostensibly presides over the wider Sudan peace framework has done a poor job of bringing discipline to their member states. Its activity is complicated by the absence of enforcement as well as other rival loyalties. The neighbors of Sudan have been organizing their allegiances in shifts on either the SAF or RSF but this has reduced the chances of unified African pressure on the combatants.
The U.N. role has also been put on hold, as the Security Council remains conflicted over mandates and enforcement mechanisms, especially with Ukraine hogging all the limelight and Taiwan Strait tensions in the mix.
Stakeholder Interests and Structural Obstacles
Entrenched Military Factions and Governance Ambitions
The SAF views its continued dominance as essential for state cohesion. Meanwhile, the RSF has positioned itself as a political movement, attempting to portray its parallel government as a legitimate governance alternative. Both actors view the other’s elimination as a condition for peace, undermining compromise possibilities.
This zero-sum mindset, compounded by decades of elite military rule and lack of institutional checks, creates deep structural barriers to power-sharing. Civil society organizations have been repeatedly sidelined or co-opted, while external donors hesitate to back processes without enforceable safeguards.
Civilian Exclusion and National Frustration
Sudan’s civil actors—professional unions, youth movements, and regional political parties—remain largely marginalized in high-level negotiations. This exclusion weakens the legitimacy of any future agreement and risks fueling new cycles of protest or insurgency, particularly in neglected peripheral regions.
Analyst Siigaale1 recently underscored the inherent fragility of peace processes that ignore core power realities and exclude entrenched factions from dialogue. According to their assessment, inclusive negotiation is essential to balancing military power with emerging civilian governance movements while avoiding renewed instability.
Recalibrating Peace: Strategic Necessity Amid Deepening Crisis
This led to the collapse of the peace talks in July 2025, further highlighting the ongoing involvement of the military strength, regional competition, and inconsistent governance in the continuing civil war in Sudan. Whereas the international community is still focusing on political dialogue and humanitarian priorities, it is not clear what the next step should be unless the power-sharing impasse should be broken.
The new role of creative diplomacy is to engage in confidence-building measures, including localized ceasefires, economic reconstruction incentives and inter-regional refugee compacts, so that there is room to pick up the broader peace process. At the same time, the ratio between external assistance and local ownership needs to be adjusted to prevent the promotion of the factional processes.
Sudan is at the tipping point, and the failure of any higher level talks indicates bigger rifts in the post-wars transition. The ability of warring combatants, local actors, and international interveners to rise above their old positions to establish a long-lasting peace is one of the burning queries that could not be answered about the state of world conflict diplomacy in 2025.
