![[Re]Group: A Playbook for Turbulent Times](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PUHU!,w_120,h_120,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff2fb4256-d509-4e61-827b-2ee678efbba9_256x256.png)
![[Re]Group: A Playbook for Turbulent Times](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OvcZ!,e_trim:10:white/e_trim:10:transparent/h_182,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa2653539-a634-4ef5-9aab-bc4a7546ebc9_1344x500.png)
At the top of the agenda for nearly every candidate vying to become the next UN Secretary-General is revitalizing the organization’s ability to prevent conflict and promote peace. The candidates’ proposals vary in their specifics, but the underlying premise is the same: a recognition that the UN’s role in mediating conflicts and advancing peace has diminished in recent years, and a conviction that the world needs a UN capable of once again playing a central role in ending wars — and that the Secretary-General needs to lead that charge.
But if the organization’s next leader is to restore its role as a peacemaker, it is worth considering: What kind of peace are we talking about?
The ambitions of international peace diplomacy have waned in recent years. When peace deals are reached, they are often narrowly focused, intended to manage specific aspects of a conflict, such as opening humanitarian corridors, securing localized truces, or negotiating humanitarian pauses. These agreements have their benefits, to be sure. But the scope of peacemaking today is limited. All the while, the underlying conflicts drag on.
The next Secretary-General has an opportunity to widen the aperture of what peace diplomacy can achieve and, in so doing, help steer the world into a new era in which far-reaching peace agreements are once again attainable.
Whither “Comprehensive” Peace Agreements
During much of the post-Cold War period, the ultimate goal of peacemaking was a comprehensive peace agreement that offered a broad framework for ending a conflict, laying the groundwork for post-conflict recovery, and facilitating the political integration of formerly warring parties. These kinds of agreements ended wars in Bosnia (the 1995 Dayton Accords) and Liberia (the 2003 Accra Agreement), among others. But as the International Crisis Group notes in a recent report, the last broad-based comprehensive peace agreement of this kind was negotiated in Colombia in 2016. In the decade since, the ambitions of international peacemaking have decidedly narrowed.
“Since the Colombia deal, there has been no settlement on a comparable scale, and the current generation of mediators generally focuses on deals of more limited scope and duration,” says Crisis Group in its report. “These may include ceasefires, confidence-building measures (such as Russian-Ukrainian prisoner exchanges brokered by Arab states) or bargains to attenuate the spillover of active conflicts, such as the Black Sea Grain Initiative worked out by Türkiye and the UN between Kyiv and Moscow in 2022.”
These narrower agreements serve an important purpose, but they have generally not led to broader peace settlements. At a time of intense geopolitical rivalry, such comprehensive agreements may seem increasingly out of reach. Yet the proliferation of wars and armed conflicts, and the immense human suffering they cause, demand a more ambitious approach to international peacemaking. The international community needs to recover the capacity not merely to contain wars, but to end them. The UN in general, and the next Secretary-General in particular, can help. And she or he can start with Sudan.
Take the Big Swing
In a recent piece for [Re]Group, Jeffrey Feltman argues that the UN needs to “elevate Sudan” and demonstrate its commitment to ending this devastating civil war. The geopolitics of ending Sudan’s war are complicated: Various external actors are fueling the conflict, providing arms and other support to the warring parties. Meanwhile, since 2023, over 12 million people have been displaced. Sudan today is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
These challenges are formidable, but they are not necessarily insurmountable. As Feltman, a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, notes, although the conflict in Sudan has ensnared various regional powers, the major powers on the Security Council do not have as direct a stake in the conflict as they do in, say, Gaza, Iran, or Ukraine.
“I’m not saying there’s going to be an immediate resolution,” Feltman says, “but the UN needs to be ‘caught trying’ something different. As Sudan doesn’t provoke absolutism among Member States, you can raise the profile of the UN on peace and security by showing you are willing to navigate around structural constraints.”
Since the outbreak of the civil war in 2023, there has been a proliferation of peace talks on Sudan, held in various formats and forums. There have been talks in Jeddah, Cairo, and Geneva, as well as initiatives led by the East African regional organization IGAD, and diplomatic efforts under the auspices of the “Quad” and “Quintet.” These efforts have generally been well-intentioned, but their impact has been limited.
The fragmentation of these peace processes presents an opportunity for the UN to bring greater coherence to international diplomatic efforts. A more unified approach, led personally by the next Secretary General, could break some of the existing logjams.
To that end, Feltman proposes several concrete steps the next Secretary-General could take to make the UN a more visible force for peace in Sudan, including engaging in shuttle diplomacy among the major players and personally participating in ongoing diplomatic forums. He also encourages the next Secretary-General to push for a nationwide arms embargo, an idea that has already generated some momentum within the Security Council and could use a high-level push. (The latest attempt to expand an arms embargo on the entire country fell short in September, and the Council instead opted for a two-month rollover of an embargo limited to the Darfur region). Such a measure would send a powerful signal that the Security Council is, in fact, united in its determination to end the war.
To be sure, these are interim steps — as are any localized ceasefires and humanitarian pauses. But what is important is that the next Secretary-General not treat these steps as the goals themselves, but use every tool within her or his power to bring the parties to a durable political settlement. The eyes need to be squarely on the prize.
Meeting the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with an ambitious effort to end the conflict, rather than merely manage its consequences, requires precisely the kind of leadership a Secretary-General is uniquely positioned to provide. A diplomatic surge, led by the Secretary-General in the first months of her or his tenure, would send a powerful signal of a new, more assertive approach to peacemaking.
There is, of course, a substantial risk that the next Secretary-General expends enormous political capital trying to end the war in Sudan, only to fail. But the greater risk may be in not trying at all. Failing to think big is itself a tacit endorsement of the status quo — a resignation to a world in which wars grind on indefinitely and lasting peace seems increasingly out of reach.
Pursuing a high-risk, high-reward strategy in Sudan through an early and visible diplomatic initiative would demonstrate that the next Secretary-General is willing to reestablish the UN as a place where ambitious peacemaking is still possible. If successful, it would prove that the organization can still be the indispensable forum for ending seemingly intractable conflicts.
