WASHINGTON  In their first African venture together in 2006, the future president and the former fighter pilot stood in what had been Nelson Mandela’s jail cell on Robben Island, once an international symbol of oppression.

It was, by many accounts, the beginning of a friendship between President Obama and the former pilot, Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration. And in March, the president enlisted the general to help resolve another African scourge in Sudan, where a campaign of killing has left hundreds of thousands of people dead and millions displaced.

On Monday, the administration unveiled a new policy in Sudan, outlining an effort that officials said was aimed at ending the mass human suffering there, promoting a definitive peace and preventing Sudan from serving as a haven for terrorists.

Though the details of the policy remained classified, senior administration officials described it as a mix of incentives and pressure to compel cooperation from the government in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. Glaringly absent were the tougher sanctions and no-flight zones that Mr. Obama had called for in his bid for president. Rather than issuing threats to the Sudanese government, the policy proposes to “engage with allies and with those with whom we disagree.”