ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the foreign policy orientation, decision-making, and behavior of Sudan during the 1980s, particularly from the fall of Ja'far Numieri's military regime in 1985 to the fall of Sadiq Al-Mahdi's civilian regime in 1989. Sudan is the largest country in Africa and the Arab world. The impact of the geographic separation of North and South is compounded by the international boundaries of Sudan. The Sudanese social structure consists of multiple disjointed units. It encompasses more than the adverse impacts of ethnicity and religion. The land ownership and social dislocation matrix reveal additional dimensions. Religious affiliations have interacted within the framework of ethnic plurality to leave the Sudanese with a limited sense of territorial and national integration. The unsettled civil-military relations have been a major dilemma for the government in Sudan. Sudan has a significantly low level of economic capability. Fragmentation of the Sudanese polity suggests the primacy of environmental factors.
