Will naming, shaming & sanctioning terror in Sudan stop bloodshed? 19%
By Alex Thurston0%
7/30/2026, 9:05:02 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Pessimism Bias, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 22.9% saturation with 306 hits. Analysis detected 2,125 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,335 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 32.3% and a BS Rank of 19% (18,692 of 22,830 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 81.90% of the article peer group.
In June, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the Preventing External Aggression and Conflict Escalation (PEACE) in Sudan Act of 2026.
In the House, the pending U.S.
Engagement in Sudanese Peace Act and the RSF Terrorism Designation Act partly overlap with the PEACE Act.
One of the most consequential questions raised by the various bills is whether to designate Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force that has been at war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since 2023, as a terrorist group.
What effects could a terrorist designation for the RSF have?
Would a designation make ceasefire negotiations – being pursued, although amid much criticism, by President Donald Trump’s Africa advisor Massad Boulos – easier or more difficult?
And would a designation constrain the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is credibly accused of backing the RSF?
To think through these issues, I talked with several experts on Sudan and on terrorism designations.
The stakes go beyond Sudan.
There are strong arguments for and against a designation.
On the one hand, designating the RSF would index Washington’s commitment to stabilizing Sudan and ending a war that has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and sent ripples throughout the Horn of Africa.
The UAE already stands accused of pursuing a destabilizing and divisive foreign policy from Yemen to Sudan to Libya with its support for strongmen who fuel conflict .
Targeting it could show Gulf monarchies that there are limits to their influence in Washington.
On the other hand, sanctions regimes face increasing criticism, as their application from Iran to Russia have largely failed to produce sought-after behavior changes, have generally hardened the resolve of their targets, and resulted in unintended negative consequences for civilians.
Terrorism designations can even make it harder for humanitarian relief agencies to operate due to fears they could be tarred as providing “material support.”
The terrorism designations system has also been criticized as politicized and susceptible to executive overreach.
In designating the RSF, a genocidal and destructive group by many standards, the U.S. might nevertheless reinforce problematic powers of the national security state.
Moreover, several experts suggested that a designation will have little effect in isolation.
If a designation is worth pursuing, it would need to be part of a broader strategy that the Trump administration has not, so far, articulated.
Terrorism designations: Mechanisms and limitations
The U.S. government has multiple designation mechanisms.
The pending bills ask the secretary of state to apply the Specially Designated Global Terrorism (SDGT) mechanism.
The SDGT designation can apply to a group or to an individual, and can be made by either State or Treasury, albeit under different parameters.
The other main designation that might apply to the RSF – the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) – can only be made by State.
Both designation mechanisms apply financial sanctions, seeking to make it difficult for the designated entities to move money through the international banking system, as well as to hold property or other assets in the United States and elsewhere.
The FTO designation is potentially more sweeping in that it criminalizes providing “material support” to a designated group.
Meanwhile, the State Department maintains a list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, which included Sudan from 1993 to 2020.
These designation mechanisms exist alongside other sanctions, including for Sudan.
In January 2025, the outgoing Biden administration determined that “members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan,” and sanctioned the RSF’s leader, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti.”
However, the Sudanese journalist Eiad Husham told me that “targeted financial and personal sanctions have only a limited impact on the RSF leadership…many of them emerged from a regime that operated under international sanctions for nearly three decades, so they have experience adapting to those restrictions.”
Husham added that “sanctions alone do not necessarily isolate individuals politically or diplomatically,” as evidenced by the visit of Hemedti’s brother Algoni to Washington in October 2025, despite being under sanctions himself.
A terrorism designation for the RSF would not necessarily hinder the group.
Jason Blazakis, a former State Department official who authored the recently published " Terror Disrupted: Countering the Financing of Terrorism ," told me that enforcing terrorism designations overseas is difficult; the most effective applications involve “international cohesion” and broad coordination with other governments and the United Nations, something the Trump administration seldom seeks.
Even with a coalition, enforcement would still be difficult: for example, Blazakis said, it is “very unlikely that RSF gold profits moving through the UAE would be flagged.”
A recent UN report highlighted how a “war economy” fuels the conflict in Sudan; it would not be easy for a terrorism designation to disrupt flows of gum arabic and other commodities from Sudan.
Possible political effects
Enforcement problems, however, would not necessarily render a designation meaningless.
Blazakis commented that a designation could be wielded diplomatically as a stick now and as a carrot later.
Washington leveraged the State Sponsors of Terrorism list for many years as a bargaining chip with Sudanese authorities in the past.
To use a designation of the RSF as a tool for pressuring the UAE, as well as Ethiopia, Chad, Kenya, and other accused RSF supporters to break with the militia, according to Blazakis, would require considerable diplomatic finesse.
For one expert on Sudan, Tufts University’s Alex de Waal, a designation would at least bring a greater degree of clarity to U.S. policy.
Given that the U.S. government has deemed RSF guilty of genocide, de Waal told me, “It’s at least an oddity that being responsible for an exceptionally grave crime in international law seems to be inconsequential, but being designated a terrorist does have consequences.”
Still, de Waal noted that “it would be difficult to designate an organization as a terrorist and then immediately talk to them.”
The SAF, he added, aims for total military victory, and designating the RSF risked reinforcing the SAF’s “maximalist” position.
The real target of a terrorist designation for the RSF is the UAE.
Since war broke out in Sudan in 2023, substantial evidence has accumulated regarding Emirati logistical and material support to the RSF.
Supply routes and foreign mercenaries have flowed through Chad , Somalia , Ethiopia , and Libya .
Husham told me he does not expect the Trump administration to designate the RSF – but, if it did, the move “would force a difficult political and diplomatic conversation with Abu Dhabi.”
If the UAE distanced itself from the RSF, that could weaken the group’s hold on western Sudan and even help bring an end to the war.
While de Waal agreed that such a development would weaken the militia, it could also fracture it.
“So while it’s hard enough to negotiate anything right now, it might be impossible if the RSF fractures.”
What hope is there, finally, for a mediated settlement in Sudan?
Cameron Hudson, a former U.S. diplomat and longtime Sudan watcher, has argued that designating the RSF could lead to a breakthrough with the SAF, which has rejected successive ceasefire proposals put forward by Boulos.
Hudson has also argued , however, that “the latest round of U.S. sanctions on Sudan” – provoked by the alleged use by the SAF of chemical weapons – “will make getting the SAF to the ceasefire negotiation table even harder.”
Husham is pessimistic about the Trump administration’s efforts.
Boulos, Husham commented, “appears to be overseeing more than sixty countries while being short staffed and having no previous diplomatic experience.
That is an enormous portfolio for anyone, particularly when dealing with a complex conflict like Sudan’s.”
In short, a chain of events would have to occur before the RSF could be designated, much less for the designation to help end the war.
In the meantime, the question of designating the RSF occasions reflection on whether and how the tools of the War on Terror can be used to make peace, disrupt networks of influence, and alter the politics of the Horn and the Gulf.
Analysis
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