An account of how thoroughly the planet’s contemporary peoples endure punishing wars could be useful at this perilous juncture in humanity’s evolution. This morning and subsequently I examine a few of the deadliest and disturbing conflicts roiling the globe.
Ukraine
The Russians are battering their way across Bakhmut, in the Donbas, and shelling Ukrainian positions both north and south. Missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure continue almost daily. It appears that Western sanctions are beginning to bite, but semiconductor chips and other parts for Russian missiles and aircraft, even American ones, are still arriving via Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia to boost Russian production of equipment employed to attack Ukraine.
Russia is busy arranging defenses all across the Donbas to halt a possible Ukrainian major attempted breakthrough. It has dug multiple layers of trenches and erected dragons-teeth anti-tank obstacles in numerous locations. Moreover, it has scattered land mines everywhere to impede any Ukrainian advance.
Ukrainian forces have received Patriot missile antiaircraft defensive batteries; oldish and newer tanks of German, British, and U. S. manufacture; vintage aircraft, and modern howitzers. But Ukraine is still short of ammunition for its existing as well as its newly received arsenal. European and American factories simply cannot fill and finish projectiles for Ukraine’s existing and rapidly growing weapons of war fast enough. Perhaps materiel from Egypt and South Korea can help to fill the gap, but the latter country fears a Russian retaliation that would boost North Korea’s fire power.
There is much chatter about a Ukrainian spring offensive. Expectations are that re-equipped and freshly trained Ukrainian forces will soon charge toward Melitopol in order to cut Russia’s links to Crimea and break its current hold on the southern Donbas region. Zaporizhia province is also in Ukrainian sight. The Russians are waiting, however, confident that they can pour sufficient cannon fodder (new conscripts) into the void and thwart a Ukrainian drive. Russia also has superior air power and may still have supplies ammunition for its artillery.
On the cusp of the Ukrainian surge, the battle lines are still mostly static. The Russians inch forward in Bakhmut. They seem to be abandoning the trans-Dnieper section of Kherson. Fighting also continues in Avdiivka, south of Bakhmut and east of Kherson. A successful breakthrough by the Ukrainians would be a major booster of morale; big gains in the direction of Melitiopol would compel a major Russian reassessment. A failed drive, however, would probably stimulate bargaining, but with Putin more empowered than now.
In other words, without a major advance by one side or the other, the contest for freedom in Europe, for the rule of war and the recognition of national sovereignty, the struggle between right and wrong will become even more pervasive and decisive than it is today.
Sudan
As I wrote here last week, two Putin-like malicious tricksters have unleashed their competitive legions against each other, with 4,000 wounded and 400 killed in internecine battles entirely for control of Sudan and spoils. Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile Rivers, has experienced almost continuous shooting for a week, with the irregular Rapid Support Forces attempting to wrest power away from the regular Sudanese army and air force (and its tiny navy). The RSF has fewer men overall in Sudan than the regular army, but in Khartoum and in places like Meroe, down the main Nile, the RSF may have firepower and muscle equal to the regulars.
The struggle for primacy is between Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemeti), the RSF leader, and Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of state and Hemeti’s nominal superior. Hemeti has long thirsted for power. In Darfur in the 2003-2006 period, at the head of separate detachments (Burhan’s the regular army and Hemeti’s an Arab mercenary force of cavalry called the Janjaweed) both orchestrated a genocide of African villagers that cost 300,000 lives and forcibly displaced about 2 million Darfuri civilians. Some fled across the province’s western border to Chad to escape annihilation. Today. thousands of Darfuri are again fleeing violence, if not extirpation. There is devastation there as well as in Kordofan to the east, and in provinces close to South Sudan.
The most punishing battles between the legions of Burhan and Hemeti have taken place in Khartoum, and across the river in Omdurman. Hundreds of European and American diplomats and their dependents have been airlifted out; Saudi Arabian and UN convoys have snaked their way by road to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Less well connected and less well off
Sudanese have managed to follow the Nile up to Egypt or crossed the border into Ethiopia’s Tigray Province, where a hot conflict has only recently been cooled.
The end of bitter conflict in Sudan is not yet in sight. Burhan and Hemeti have called each other names. The joint government that they ran together since a coup in 2021 that ousted civilian co-rulers is clearly no more. Burhan wanted to merge the RSF into the regular army, under his command. That helped to precipitate the hostilities that broke out last week. But continued access to corruptly acquired wealth is also central to their contestation. How mediators from Washington, Cairo, Riyadh (the Arab League), and Addis Ababa (the African Union) are going to square the combustible circle is not yet clear. The contenders and the contending armies are at each other’s throats; civilians cannot venture from their homes in Khartoum and other cities, and armies are using hospitals and schools as fortresses. A spotty cease fire seems to be holding today, but hostilities could easily erupt again within hours.
A return to civilian rule is a proper goal even though civil society is riddled with competitive leaders and followers. But disarming the militants and placing them effectively under civilian authority is a result rarely achieved in Sudan since its independence in 1956. Sudan has had a succession of military rulers; Gen. Omar al-Bashir ruled from 1989 to 2019, tolerating little dissent.
In Sum
Ukraine has impeccable leadership, heightened morale, and an energized civil society. It grows much of its own food, even in terrible times like now. Sudan is Africa’s third largest land mass, with illegitimate leaders, little free political participation, and no rule of law nor respect for human rights – the very elements for which Ukrainians are striving against larger and ego-driven forces. Removing Putin and Hemeti would end both wars. But how? Until world order contrives a way, soldiers and civilians in the vast numbers will continue to perish.
Next time: the wars in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Myanmar, and Somalia,