Sudan, Europe, and the Cost of Appeasement: Why Sustainable Peace Cannot Be Built by Normalizing Militias

No one ever blamed Europe for the enormous price it paid to defeat fascism.

Europe was not accused of being reckless, nor was its resistance described as “unrealistic.” No one urged its societies to accept mass murder and organized violence as the cost of stability.

On the contrary, the sacrifices Europe made were widely recognized as necessary, legitimate, and morally unavoidable—the price of defending human dignity, the rule of law, and the very idea of the modern state.

History ultimately confirmed a hard truth: the cost of resisting fascism, however high, was far lower than the cost of coexisting with it.

This lesson is not rhetorical. It is directly relevant to Sudan today.

As Sudan grapples with a devastating war, a troubling narrative has emerged—one that promotes “political realism” as acceptance of the

RSF, the militia responsible for well-documented genocides, massacres, ethnic cleansing, and systematic violations of international humanitarian law.

Sudanese civilians are effectively being asked to accept what Europeans were never asked to tolerate: the normalization of armed terror as a political actor.

Europe did not integrate fascist militias into postwar politics. It did not reward perpetrators with negotiation tables after mass crimes. It criminalized them, dismantled their structures, and established accountability mechanisms—most notably the Nuremberg trials—laying the foundations of a rules-based international order.

A key point not to overlook: These Western states themselves do consistently urge Lebanon and Iraq to dismantle militias and ensure the state’s monopoly on the use of force.

In both Lebanon and Iraq, these recommendations are framed as necessary for state stability, civilian protection, and the rule of law. Yet, paradoxically, Sudan is often pressured to compromise with armed groups that operate outside state authority, despite their documented crimes.

This inconsistency underscores that Sudan’s insistence on dismantling militias and restoring state control is not “unrealistic” or “exceptional”—it aligns with the very standards that Western powers routinely promote elsewhere.

This historical parallel brings into sharp focus the significance of Sudan’s peace initiative presented by the Prime Minister at the United Nations in New York.

Crucially, the initiative does more than call for a ceasefire. It addresses the core issue at the heart of Sudan’s collapse: the impossibility of sustainable peace while armed groups operate outside state authority.

Any settlement that leaves militias intact merely postpones violence rather than ending it.

The initiative gained added weight through the explicit welcome expressed by the UN Secretary-General, emphasizing civilian protection and the restoration of state authority.

Similarly, the African Union endorsed the initiative as who described it as a constructive as a basis for a just and sustainable resolution of the conflict, a credible and principled framework aligned with continental norms rejecting unconstitutional changes of power and militia rule.

This international and regional backing underscores a critical point: Sudan is not asking for exceptional treatment. It is demanding the application of the same principles that shaped the post–World War II order—principles that Europe itself benefited from and defended at great cost.

To pressure Sudan into accepting a militia responsible for atrocities in the name of expediency is not realism; it is moral abdication.

History shows that peace built on appeasing armed terror does not heal societies—it entrenches cycles of violence and impunity.

As Europe was not rebuilt by compromising with fascism, likewise,

Sudan will not be rebuilt by accommodating militias.

At stake is not merely a political settlement, but the very definition of the state: whether it retains the monopoly on the legitimate use of force, or surrenders it to armed actors whose power rests on mass violence.

History has already rendered its verdict on such choices.

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