Why Sudan's war risks becoming a permanent political system in 2026

Sudan approaches 2026 carrying the weight of a war that no longer shocks the outside world and has begun to settle into daily life inside the country.

Since April 2023, fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has hollowed out cities, emptied neighbourhoods, and displaced more than 14 million people.

Famine is no longer a forecast but a lived reality in parts of Darfur, Kordofan and central Sudan. Attacks on civilians and the obstruction of aid have become grimly routine, while health systems have collapsed and schools remain closed.

What makes this moment especially dangerous is not only the absence of peace talks that work, but the growing sense that the war is learning how to endure. Markets, armed groups and survival strategies are reorganising around violence rather than waiting for its end.

Ceasefires, sanctions and diplomatic timelines increasingly function as mechanisms for managing collapse rather than reversing it.

With 2026 approaching, the question is no longer whether another round of negotiations will be announced - after nearly 1,000 days, the war has outlived diplomacy.

The more urgent issue is whether it is quietly hardening into a permanent way of governing territory, resources and people.

Ceasefire politics

Washington has publicly set the end of 2025 as a target for achieving at least a humanitarian cessation of hostilities, raising the stakes for what 2026 might bring. US officials have framed this goal narrowly, focusing on reducing violence sufficiently to allow humanitarian access, rather than securing a comprehensive political settlement.

The conflict, however, has proven remarkably resistant to ceasefire efforts. Since 2023, multiple truces have been announced, violated, revived and abandoned.

The RSF has repeatedly declared acceptance of humanitarian pauses while continuing combat operations

The RSF has repeatedly declared acceptance of humanitarian pauses while continuing combat operations on the ground. The SAF, for its part, has consistently rejected ceasefires that do not begin with the RSF's disarmament, including in the Sudanese prime minister's address to the UN Security Council last week.

SAF leaders argue that any truce without a military resolution allows the paramilitary force to regroup. Numerous reports have shown how ceasefire proposals routinely collapse within days, underscoring the absence of credible enforcement mechanisms and the gap between diplomatic declarations and realities on the ground.

Despite its hardline stance, the SAF has not fully disengaged from diplomacy. Following visits to Saudi Arabia and Cairo, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan signalled through Sudan's foreign ministry a readiness to cooperate with the United States on political efforts to end the war.

This reflects strategic recalibration rather than ideological shift. Engagement with Washington is viewed as a way to shape the terms of any future settlement without surrendering battlefield leverage.

For the US, this creates a paradoxical relationship with the SAF. Pressure is applied rhetorically and diplomatically, while engagement continues out of concern that isolation could further entrench positions and narrow already limited options.

As ceasefire diplomacy stalls, western governments have increasingly turned to sanctions targeting the political economy of the war.

In December 2025, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a network of Colombian nationals and companies accused of recruiting former Colombian soldiers to fight alongside the RSF.

According to US officials and Reuters' reporting, between 300 and 400 Colombians were recruited and deployed to Sudan, reinforcing RSF combat capacity through transnational mercenary pipelines. The UK followed with sanctions against senior RSF figures accused of involvement in atrocities in Darfur, including asset freezes and travel bans.

These measures reflect a growing consensus that Sudan's war is sustained not only by internal dynamics but by international recruitment, financing and logistical networks.

These measures have not altered battlefield realities, but they signal rising long-term costs for armed actors and narrow the diplomatic space in which the conflict can be normalised.

Regional containment

Among Sudan's neighbours, Egypt occupies a uniquely influential position. In late 2025, Cairo publicly articulated what it described as red lines in relation to the conflict.

Egyptian officials stated that Sudan's unity and territorial integrity are non-negotiable, that the collapse or fragmentation of state institutions would threaten regional stability, and that the emergence of parallel governing authorities would be unacceptable.

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These red lines were grounded in the joint defence pact binding the two countries, signalling that Sudan's disintegration would not be treated as a purely internal matter. While Cairo stopped short of announcing military intervention, the message was clear: Sudan's war has moved from domestic crisis to regional security concern.

This position reinforces Egypt's support for centralised authority in Port Sudan, while placing less emphasis on negotiations that could resolve Sudan's accelerating territorial and political fragmentation issues.

While diplomacy, sanctions and red lines dominate official discourse, Sudanese civilians continue to absorb the full weight of the war.

Aid agencies warn that famine conditions are spreading across displacement camps, particularly in Darfur, where siege tactics and attacks on camps have been repeatedly documented.

Each failed ceasefire deepens civilian despair and reinforces the sense that international engagement arrives too late and withdraws too quickly.

Permanent war

As Sudan enters 2026, the narrowing of options is unmistakable. Ceasefire diplomacy has become episodic rather than transformative. Sanctions signal frustration more than leverage, and regional positioning reflects preparation for containment rather than confidence in resolution.

The war is no longer expanding simply because negotiations fail; it is expanding because armed actors have learned how to survive politically, economically and militarily within it.

The longer the war continues without meaningful interruption, the more it is treated as a condition to be managed rather than a crisis to be resolved

Even if a fragile humanitarian ceasefire is reached through international pressure, without addressing the root causes of the conflict, it does not mean that this grim chapter has closed permanently.

By the end of 2026, the decisive issue may no longer be whether Sudan can end its war, but whether it can prevent violence from becoming its permanent political system.

When violence begins to define how authority is exercised, how economies function, and how civilians imagine their future, ending the conflict becomes far harder than sustaining it.

What is unfolding now is not just a failure of peace initiatives, but a quiet shift in expectations.

The longer the war continues without meaningful interruption, the more it is treated as a condition to be managed rather than a crisis to be resolved. Should 2026 pass without a genuine rupture in this trajectory, Sudan risks entering a phase in which war is no longer treated as an emergency.

It becomes the system itself.

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