The honeymoon period for Africa’s newest state came and went in the blink of an eye and South Sudan finds itself once more on the path to war.

The government of South Sudan needs time: time to build up military strength, shore up foreign support, enact a domestic development agenda, and strengthen its position in disputed border regions like Abyei and Blue Nile.

But it looks like time will be a luxury that it cannot afford, as the government of South Sudan is besieged by internal and external pressures to make a move, any move, even one that is ruinously premature.

Internal pressure stems from a domestic population that, having fought long and hard for independence, expects that things are going to get better now that their goal has finally been achieved. South Sudan has long lagged behind the north in just about every recorded development metric, and there is a widespread expectation that independence will help change this disparity. Yet the ability of the southern government to deliver on these development goals is frustrated by the fact that South Sudan is still economically tied to Khartoum. Although the carving away of the south has taken much of Sudan’s oil reserves with it, South Sudan is still reliant on pipelines that run through the north to sell its product; a fairly terminal dependency given the fact that oil revenues constitute 98 percent of South Sudan’s national budget. Thus, ironically enough, the government of South Sudan is still beholden to Khartoum’s goodwill if it’s ever going to achieve its own short term domestic development goals.