Whose Security Matters?

Sudan and the Limits of the International Order

Illustration by Connor JL Moore

Since the outbreak of civil war in April 2023, Sudan has experienced the world’s largest humanitarian crisis by population in need of humanitarian aid.

The conflict is primarily between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the country’s national military, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group from Darfur. As fighting has intensified, it has produced widespread violence, mass displacement, and the breakdown of basic services.

The scale of the crisis is catastrophic; an estimated 15 million people are displaced because of the conflict, and death toll estimates range from roughly 56,000 to 150,000 people. Large areas of the country face acute food insecurity, collapsing infrastructure, and extremely limited humanitarian access, making Sudan one of the fastest-growing displacement crises globally.

Despite the scale of suffering, the war has not generated the same level of international attention, political engagement, or urgency as other major global crises. This gap is not accidental: the war in Sudan exposes deep inequalities in who the international order prioritizes. Addressing these disparities requires rethinking how the international community determines which crises receive attention, resources, and political action.

Inequity in Global Responses

After the war in Ukraine began, governments across the world mobilized quickly, providing large-scale military aid, coordinating sanctions against Russia, sustaining diplomatic engagement, and offering extensive humanitarian assistance. The conflict became central to global security discussions, particularly within Europe and NATO, where it has reshaped strategic thinking on regional defense and responses.

In Gaza, sustained diplomatic engagement, repeated high-level visits, and mediation efforts by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt have kept the conflict at the center of international attention and negotiation. Despite being a crisis in the Global South, the conflict prompted repeated attention on the international stage, reflecting its perceived importance for Western and regional political interests.

Both the conflicts in Gaza and Sudan have been described as genocidal by numerous experts, yet the international response to each has been very different. By contrast, responses to Sudan have been slower, less coordinated, and far less visible. Humanitarian aid is consistently underfunded, diplomatic engagement is fragmented, and media coverage remains limited relative to the scale of violence. The war in Sudan receives 97% less media coverage than Gaza, and even when international statements are issued, they are rarely followed by political pressure or coordinated action. Unlike Sudan, both Gaza and Ukraine are closely tied to the strategic interests of major powers and broader concerns about regional stability, which may partially explain their heightened visibility.

The scale of this imbalance raises important questions about which crises are treated as urgent and which are marginalized.

How It Happens

This disparity reflects how the international order operates in practice rather than according to its stated commitments to universal human rights, sovereign equality, and the protection of civilians. States tend to prioritize conflicts tied to strategic interests, regional stability, or political alliances, which produces uneven attention across crises.

Scholars often explain this as a reflection of rational state behavior: governments respond to threats that directly affect their national interests and security commitments. While this narrative captures part of how states act, it does not explain why certain regions consistently receive less attention even when the scale of humanitarian need is comparable, or why some crises generate sustained diplomatic engagement while others remain secondary.

The persistence of this pattern points to deeper structural dynamics within the international system. One of these is the continued blindness in international relations to racial and colonial hierarchies. 

In practice, this means some countries and populations are consistently treated as more deserving of international attention and protection than those in poorer, historically marginalized regions. As a result, some crises are framed as immediate international priorities in the media and policymaking, while others remain marginal, regardless of severity. Responses are therefore not neutral: they reflect longstanding power structures that shape which crises receive global attention and whose suffering is deemed politically consequential.

These assumptions extend beyond visibility and shape how security itself is understood. Dominant security frameworks tend to privilege the concerns of powerful states and treat crises in the Global South as less urgent. Structural realism, an international relations theory that defines a state's motivations as driven by security and power, helps explain how these priorities translate into policy. From this perspective, crises that do not affect the interests of powerful states are less likely to receive sustained diplomatic engagement, funding, or political attention. This pattern of uneven attention and resource allocation—often described as "selectivity"—demonstrates that humanitarian responses are driven as much by geopolitical interests as by human need.

By April 2026, donors had funded only 20% of Sudan's humanitarian response appeal, despite the UN identifying the conflict as the world's largest humanitarian crisis. Selectivity is ultimately a political choice that determines which lives receive protection, assistance, and sustained international attention.

The Stakes

Selectivity has real consequences. When conflicts receive limited attention, they are more likely to escalate, become prolonged, and deepen humanitarian crises in the region. This is because international attention often drives humanitarian funding, diplomatic engagement, media scrutiny, and political pressure on the parties to a conflict. In places like Sudan, this means reduced humanitarian access, slower diplomatic intervention, and fewer incentives for parties to negotiate. It also weakens the credibility of international norms that claim to protect civilians and promote global security.

If protection is inconsistent, then the idea of universal security becomes harder to sustain in practice. Over time, these inconsistencies undermine claims that the international order operates on shared principles rather than shifting priorities. Instead, it begins to resemble a system where the value of security is unevenly assigned depending on who is affected and where the crisis occurs.

Sudan is not an isolated case but an example of how these patterns operate across the international system. It shows how global attention is conditional and that some forms of suffering have long been treated as more visible and politically actionable than others. Without change, these disparities will continue to reproduce themselves rather than diminish.

Moving Forward

Acknowledging these disparities is not enough. Reducing selectivity in international responses requires concrete institutional reforms, including:

1. Make humanitarian funding needs-based. Allocate emergency funding based on objective indicators of humanitarian need rather than geopolitical interests or media attention to ensure crises like Sudan receive timely assistance.

2. Strengthen the African Union (AU). Provide sustained financial and diplomatic support to expand the AU's capacity for conflict prevention, mediation, and civilian protection.

3. Deepen AU–UN coordination. Improve early-warning systems for signs of instability, escalating violence, and risks to civilians, alongside information sharing and joint response mechanisms, so the international community can act before crises escalate.

Ultimately, the credibility of the international order depends on whether security is treated as a universal principle rather than a selective privilege. Sudan shows that humanitarian need alone is often insufficient to generate international action. Unless institutions become more consistent in how they allocate attention, resources, and political pressure, the inequalities exposed by the war in Sudan will continue to persist.

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About the Author

Leslie Carvalho is a recent graduate with an M.A. in International Security from the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs. Her work focuses on human rights, peacebuilding, and policy.

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