The war in Sudan, which has already claimed at least 150,000 lives, displaced over 11 million people, and plunged half the population into acute food insecurity, is not an aberration. It is, rather, the prototype of the wars to come – sprawling, decentralized conflicts that defy traditional diplomacy and reveal the collapse of the global order’s ability to contain violence. What is unfolding in Sudan today is not just a national tragedy but a grim forecast of how wars in the 21st century will be fought: messy, multi-layered, and fueled by both local rivalries and global neglect.

Once seen as an internal power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the conflict has evolved into a complex web of militarized economics, foreign interference, and technological terror. The war has shattered Sudan’s state institutions, erased the distinction between battlefield and home, and introduced a terrifying normalization of civilian suffering. In this sense, Sudan’s war is not a deviation from global patterns – it is the leading edge of a new and more chaotic form of warfare.

Sudan’s conflict represents a profound shift in the mechanics of war. In earlier decades, proxy wars were often “clean” in the sense that major powers controlled their surrogates through predictable hierarchies. Today, the opposite is true. The battlefield has been democratized, with cheap, commercially available drones, satellite imagery, and informal finance networks turning even fragmented militias into deadly modern armies.

In Sudan, drones are no longer auxiliary tools; they are the centerpiece of a strategy designed to blur the line between combatant and civilian. Drone strikes have devastated cities such as El-Fasher, where a single attack on a displacement shelter at Dar Al-Arqam killed 57 people, and another on the Saudi Maternal Teaching Hospital claimed over 70 lives. These attacks are not random acts of violence – they are calculated........

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