Since its independence on January 1, 1956, Sudan has been at war with itself. Through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005, the North–South dimension of the conflict was seemingly resolved by the independence of the South on July 9, 2011. However, as a result of issues that were not resolved by the CPA, conflicts within the two countries have reignited conflict between them because of allegations of support for each other's rebels.

In Bound by Conflict: Dilemmas of the Two Sudans, Francis M. Deng and Daniel J. Deng critique the tendency to see these conflicts as separate and to seek isolated solutions for them, when, in fact, they are closely intertwined. The policy implication is that resolving conflicts within the two Sudans is critical to the prospects of achieving peace, security, and stability between them, with the potential of moving them to some form of meaningful association.