For regional military and security experts, the current conflict in South Sudan did not come as a surprise. The signs were there; what was uncertain was when, how, or what would trigger the fighting and how the government of South Sudan would meet the challenge.

Following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement formally ending the war in January 2005, Dr John Garang was sworn in as the Vice President of the Republic of Sudan.

After his death in a helicopter crash on July 30, 2005, Salva Kiir was chosen to succeed Dr Garang to the post of First Vice President of Sudan and President of Southern Sudan.

However, President Kiir’s leadership of the Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) was not guaranteed or secure within the top echelons of the party.

Many people in the movement felt that President Kiir lacked the leadership skills and ability to hold the SPLM/A together, and check the ambitions of the top military commanders.

President Kiir was perceived as “one among equals,” a temporary figure who could be edged out once the independent state of South Sudan was achieved.

Then the long-simmering power struggle within the government exploded on December 15, 2013, in Juba, threatening to consume the entire region as the military disintegrated.

The out-going head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and one of the key supporters and architects of the South Sudan peace agreement, Hilde Johnson, aptly captures the situation saying, “the signs, the tensions were all there; but above all, there was paralysis.”

As the fighting raged, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda dispatched his troops into the foray in support of President Kiir.

Foreign nationals were evacuated, a safe corridor to the border with Uganda was created and the Juba airport was secured by Ugandan troops.

READ: Uganda defends troop deployment

In the meantime, the South Sudan rival faction troops engaged in bitter and vicious fighting that quickly took an ethnic turn, and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA) split into two factions.

The military sector of South Sudan was allocated over 40 per cent of the country’s annual budget estimates for more than eight years on a standing parade figure of between 120,000 and 180,000 men that has disintegrated into rival factions.

In the interim, the international community and in particular the African Union and the regional Inter-Governmental Authority and Development (Igad) have tried to mediate and negotiate a ceasefire in South Sudan without much success.

As the mediation process between the government of South Sudan, led by President Kiir, and the rebels, led by his erstwhile vice-president Riek Machar, limps on in starts and fits the prospects for an enduring and lasting peaceful settlement to the conflict seems to be ebbing away.

The mediation process is beset by contradictions, obstacles, challenges and lack of commitment and trust on the part of the principals. Despite their publicly avowed claims to seeking a peaceful settlement, they are not inclined to engage each other towards a peaceful settlement.

On the ground, there exists some kind of a mutual military parity as President Kiir and Dr Machar seek to enhance and buttress their positions.

Both parties are on a holding-pattern while they seek reinforcement for a major and conclusive engagement that both are building up to — neither force is poised for the final thrust, at least not yet; they are testing the defensive deployment of their opponent’s positions.

At May’s mediation session in Addis Ababa, a top IGAD official was said to have referred to both parties as being “stupid” for thinking there could a military solution.

This parity on the military front has made the likelihood of a political settlement difficult. Lack of progress is apparent on the part of the government in Juba as the impetus for such agreement wanes.

According to diplomatic sources involved in the mediation process, the earlier momentum towards a peaceful solution has dissipated and unless a new window of opportunity through a robust and firm engagement including a more structured regime of diplomatic-cum-economic and military sanctions is imposed on both sides, the mediation process will be further stymied.

According to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, South Sudan has in excess of five million small arms in civilian hands, a veritable array of heavily armed groups not under any central command, and a weak security-military sector and apparatus — a situation that could lead to widespread regional insecurity.

For the West, South Sudan fits in the larger anti-terrorism security ambit. With growing regional instability in the Great Lakes, Horn of Africa and the Sahelian belt from West Africa across Mali, Northern Nigerian and through to Chad and Central African Republic into Sudan an unstable South Sudan is not a welcome addition.

Neighbours Sudan to the north, Ethiopia to the East, and Kenya and Uganda to the south have all been affected, particularly in economic, trade and commercial interests.

A senior Ugandan official recently told security and military analysts from the International Crisis Group (ICG), “We must help (militarily); one can’t come once the house is already on fire. We ignore this at our own peril.”

For Kenya, an unstable South Sudan remains a major security threat that needs to be addressed. Kenya has been more discreet in its support for the Juba government, but is nonetheless a major player behind the scenes by providing military and security assistance where appropriate.

In the current fighting, Kenya has upped up it engagement including providing a safe haven for the third wing – senior political and military officers from Juba who had been detained by President Kiir.

For Ethiopia, South Sudan is a major military and security concern as it shares a long border and ethnic relationships between the Nuer and Anyauk people who live across their common border.

Sudan and South Sudan share one of the longest and most volatile borders in Africa — spanning over 2,000 kilometres, a shared oil and trade infrastructure and the disputed Abyei enclave and an on-going cross-border conflict both in the East and in the West, a legacy and spill-over of the long and bitter civil-war that was waged between them.

South Sudan’s neighbours have to gingerly walk the tight rope so as not to appear to meddle in or become active players in the conflict.

For Sudan, South Sudan is a natural market and a bountiful resource base, for Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya, South Sudan has been one of the fastest growing trading partners.

Kenya seems to have cornered the nascent banking, service, manufacturing and aviation sectors.

Uganda’s trade figures with South Sudan were for the past seven years the fastest growing, in excess of $280 million for 2010-2011 and growing.

However, there had been several signs that Juba was headed for a catastrophic melt-down, and that both camps were girding up for a military show-down, ever since President Kiir publicly humiliated his then deputy Dr Machar at the 2012 Independence Day celebrations in Juba by refusing to acknowledge his presence.

For the moment, the IGAD and AU South Sudan mediation processes are unlikely to make any dramatic progress unless Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda slap tough, painful and structured sanctions and measures including personal accountability and travel.

Threats of tougher sanctions and action by the international community ring hollow unless they are followed by more stringent, strict and personal sanctions.