The Sudanese Army: Military Doctrine and the Absence of a Unified State (1)
By Amir Babiker Abdullah
The State and Comprehensive Doctrine
Despite the bleakness of the ongoing war, which has lasted almost a year and a half, plunging the country into a dark tunnel and creating catastrophic consequences, it has shed light on critical political, social, and military issues that have long been sidelined or ignored during the journey of establishing a national state.
One of the most significant and comprehensive issues that this war has highlighted is the profound flaw in the concepts and hierarchy of the states comprehensive doctrine and the military doctrine of the national army. A key cause of this flaw is the continuous war that has plagued the country since the eve of independence and the dominance of military rule for more than 60 years since independence. Even during the brief periods of what is known as the "First, Second, and Third Democracies," the impact of war and its repercussions continued to affect their progress.
The current war has starkly revealed this flaw, especially in how it has exposed the states fragility, revealing its structural weakness. The first thing it exposed was the absence of a unified and comprehensive doctrine for the state that serves as the foundation for its institutions and as the platform from which it pursues its goals and fulfills the aspirations of its people. The states comprehensive doctrine is a set of values, principles, and teachings passed down through history and refined by experiences and historical turning points in political, military, economic, social, and scientific spheres, making it a point of general consensus.
Talking about the Sudanese state requires us to take a deeper look at the structural weaknesses that prevent the formation of a comprehensive doctrine. This examination serves two purposes: first, to uncover the reasons behind the persistent conflicts that have been the states defining feature instead of stability; second, to identify strengths that can be built upon. This begins by asking the question: Is Sudan truly a state, or is it just a myth we have believed and are now paying the price for? The aim here is not to seek a definitive answer but rather to guide us towards understanding the nature of our state, the foundations of its formation, and the likelihood of its survival. More importantly, this inquiry leads us to the search for a social contract that can regulate the comprehensive social system we seek, one that recognizes the diversity of Sudan’s peoples and is capable of creating mechanisms to manage this diversity according to the principles of peaceful coexistence.
According to modern political science definitions, Sudan is a fully-fledged state. The people living within its internationally recognized borders exist, the land upon which authority is exercised exists, and a government managing the state’s affairs—regardless of how it manages them—also exists. Additionally, international recognition of its sovereignty remains, even though the nature of this recognition and the states capacity to manage its internal and external affairs without foreign interference may be in question. The crucial issue here is whether the current state was formed and united based on a set of shared political, economic, military, social, and scientific values and principles, or whether its people—more precisely, its peoples—found themselves within this "territory" by force, with no say in the matter.
Without delving too far into ancient or modern history, many attribute the formation of the modern Sudanese state in its current form to the beginning of Turkish colonization in 1821. This is not far from the truth, but it stands as evidence of the coercive nature of uniting Sudan’s peoples to serve the colonizers expansionist goals rather than the aspirations of those peoples for voluntary unity. Before this period, the history books record the many conflicts among the kingdoms within this "territory," which reveal significant differences, making it difficult to talk about their ability to shape a comprehensive doctrine for a future unified state without reaching a consensual formula for coexistence among them. The colonizers oppressive powers may have postponed these conflicts and neutralized their effects, but they did not eliminate them. The colonizer was not concerned with addressing the root causes of these conflicts; instead, his focus was on achieving his expansionist goals, which required the highest levels of security and control.
The outbreak of the Mahdist revolution marked an important turning point in the history of building the modern Sudanese state. The Mahdist movement waged its military campaigns from the land where the colonizer had forcibly placed Sudans peoples within its borders. Therefore, it was crucial for the Mahdist movement to garner the support of these peoples to form the military force capable of confronting the colonizer. The Mahdist movement could have been the foundation for the modern Sudanese state and established its comprehensive doctrine if it had succeeded in uniting Sudan’s peoples based on a voluntary social contract. However, it failed to do so for several reasons: its inability to sustain itself after the return of colonization and the collapse of its state before completing its second decade, as well as its failure to win over all Sudanese peoples, attempting instead to impose unity by force.
Naturally, the British colonizer returned to establish control over the same "territory" by force. Meanwhile, conflicts among Sudan’s peoples entered a state of "coercive" dormancy. In fact, the British colonizer deepened these conflicts by driving a more significant wedge between the peoples in pursuit of his near- and long-term goals. The British expanded their colonial reach, drawing the current international borders of Sudan, and the world came to recognize these peoples as a single state with sovereignty and a national flag. However, this state lacked a project for a social contract that could unite its people, leaving it without a comprehensive doctrine.
