The UAE has taken Sudan to the brink. Now it must use its power to end the war

The fall of el-Fasher has done more than redraw the map of western Sudan. It has crystallised a truth long visible to those watching Abu Dhabi’s statecraft up close: when confronted, the Emirati leadership does not climb down. 

Despite two years of criticism and negative media coverage about its overt and covert entanglements in Sudan, Abu Dhabi has doubled down. Its primary surrogate, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), now holds the logistical heart of Darfur - and with it, a power base that can be monetised in gold, protected by cross-border routes and leveraged against neighbours. 

That outcome is not a fluke of battlefield luck. It reflects a governing ethos in Abu Dhabi that prizes assertiveness, retaliation against perceived slights, and the strategic accumulation of leverage over time. 

Pragmatism, in the technocratic sense, is less important than prevailing. Fifteen years of Emirati statecraft in the era of Mohammed bin Zayed have shown that for the United Arab Emirates, the question is not whether it “wins” a capital; it is whether it can deny adversaries a decisive victory, lock in access to corridors and markets, and outlast the news cycle. Yemen and Libya are cases in point.

This is why the popular shorthand that the UAE “seeks stability” so often misleads. In truly Machiavellian fashion, Abu Dhabi seeks advantage. 

It does so with a style that is unapologetically transactional and, at the top, intensely personal. President Mohammed bin Zayed, the architect of this approach, operates as a strategist who sees deterrence and reputation as indivisible. 

Backing down invites predation; escalation resets the terms. Since the Arab Spring, Mohammed bin Zayed has been consistent: tie local actors to Emirati logistics and finance, reward compliance, punish betrayal, and cultivate multiple allies so you never lose your seat at the table.

Reputational cost

The mechanism is what some call “weaponised interdependence”. Over the past decade, the UAE has built a web of ports, free zones, air hubs, trading houses and financial services that reach from the Red Sea to the Sahel, and deep into the Mediterranean - a multimodal axis of secessionists. 

Those physical and financial pipes are matched by a constellation of state-adjacent companies and private vehicles that can move money, people and materials with speed and deniability. When Abu Dhabi backs a partner, it is not only delivering cash or kit; it is opening pathways into an ecosystem centred on Emirati nodes. As long as those pathways remain open, time is on Abu Dhabi’s side.

Sudan shows the model in stark relief. The UAE has invested across multiple layers. 

If the animating impulse is to win, then 'winning' in Sudan can be redefined as avoiding the worst outcomes while demonstrating that Emirati leverage is indispensable

It has engaged civilian figures who could front a technocratic reboot in Khartoum. It has cultivated ties to the regular army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), because no viable settlement can ignore the officer corps. And most powerfully, it has aligned with the RSF, the paramilitary that turned its Darfur patronage network into a war economy. 

That last choice carries the highest reputational cost, for obvious reasons: the RSF’s genocidal conduct has been widely condemned. Yet the same elements that make the RSF toxic also make it useful to Abu Dhabi. It can police key corridors, extract rents from cross-border commerce and gold, and hold ground in the west, even if the centre of the country remains contested. For an external patron, it is a bet on endurance, rather than on a clean victory.

Criticism from Washington and London has not altered this course, nor have European warnings about sanctions or reputational damage in global markets. 

The response from Abu Dhabi, when pressure mounts, is familiar: contest the facts, widen diplomatic channels, and reinforce facts on the ground to ensure that leverage does not slip. It is an attitude of defiance rather than accommodation, and it flows from a confidence born of structural depth. 

Keeping options open

No regional capital can match the UAE’s current combination of liquidity, logistics and diplomatic access. That confidence explains another hallmark of the Emirati style: keep options live on both sides of a conflict. 

In Yemen, Abu Dhabi cultivated southern secessionists, while hedging with anti-Houthi northern forces. In Libya, it backed renegade general Khalifa Haftar’s eastern campaign, while maintaining lines to businesspeople and municipal networks in the west. 

In Sudan, it can talk to Abdalla Hamdok, the civilian ex-prime minister, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”) of the RSF, while maintaining channels to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his circle. If one door closes, another remains ajar.

But there is a price to this posture, and it is rising. Deniability - the lubricant of this kind of power - erodes with each drone video, cargo flight manifest and satellite image. 

Neighbours have sensed the change. Qatar and Oman now market themselves as conveners and mediators; Saudi Arabia, wary of being trapped in its ally’s slipstream, has leaned into a broker’s role on Sudan, even as it keeps faith with Abu Dhabi on core security concerns. 

The optics matter. When the neighbours play peacemaker, the actor most associated with patronage and rearmament becomes the story. And when the story hardens, leverage can stop being convertible: you may have influence, yet find fewer forums and fewer partners willing to legitimise its use.

Still, to understand why Abu Dhabi is unlikely to reverse itself without a real change in costs, you must see what “winning” looks like in its own terms. It is not a flag atop the presidential palace in Khartoum. It is veto power over outcomes that touch Emirati interests. It is ensuring that Red Sea shipping lanes, energy flows and data cables are buffered from shocks that others can exploit. 

It is making sure that Islamist movements viewed by the leadership as existential threats do not consolidate. It is protecting revenue streams - both licit and illicit - that pass through Dubai’s markets. On that scorecard, an RSF stronghold in Darfur that can be leveraged towards a federal bargain, or towards a frozen conflict, can look like a tolerable equilibrium, especially if a civilian face can be put on a transition elsewhere.

El-Fasher stress test

There is a different way to read el-Fasher’s fall: as a stress test of Abu Dhabi’s model, and a chance to repurpose it. 

If the UAE wishes to show that its strategic depth can deliver regional wins and not only private gains, Sudan offers an immediate stage. The same network that can keep a surrogate supplied can enforce a ceasefire, if the patron wills it. 

Closing the spigots is not glamorous statecraft, but it is decisive: shut down the airbridge and trucking lines, squeeze the monetisation of Darfur’s gold, and compel both the RSF and the SAF to accept a monitored truce. Use trusted channels to Egypt to ensure that Cairo sees an off-ramp that protects the Nile heartland and excludes the Islamist currents it fears. 

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Use influence in Riyadh to align a Saudi-led mediation with real enforcement mechanisms, not just communiques. And elevate a credible civilian centre not as a fig leaf, but as the spine of a transition that demobilises command economies on both sides.

That pivot would not require Abu Dhabi to renounce its worldview. It would simply harness it. 

If the animating impulse is to win, then “winning” in Sudan can be redefined as avoiding the worst outcomes while demonstrating that Emirati leverage is indispensable to a settlement the world can live with. That means accepting that some access will be traded away for legitimacy; some clients will be told no; some profits will be deferred. It also means showing that the UAE can be a constructive force for real and sustainable stability in the region. 

The past decade has shown that Abu Dhabi does not scare easily. It is patient, relentlessly strategic, and comfortable with ambiguity. Those traits built an “axis” of relationships with non-state actors that can outlast governments. They also brought the UAE to a point where the global public spotlight outshines the cloak that once covered Emirati activities in Africa. 

In Sudan, the instinct to double down has delivered a paramilitary redoubt and an expanding war. Turning that same instinct towards de-escalation would be the real demonstration of power: not a retreat, but a choice to convert entanglement into stability. This victory would serve Emirati interests much more in the long run. 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.