Russian Foot on the Central African Republic’s Soil: An Example of a Tactical Alliance

Abstract

The article evaluates cooperation between the Central African Republic and the Russian Federation from the perspective of forming a tactical alliance. The article conceptualises the term tactical alliance and the aims of both partners, and analyses how these aims were fulfilled under the umbrella of the tactical alliance. The authors evaluated four dimensions of this alliance: 1) military and security cooperation, 2) weapons delivery, 3) resources exploitation and 4) international support. The article comes to the conclusion that a tactical alliance was formed by the unofficial cooperation that started between the CAR’s government and private companies backed by Moscow in 2017, while later (in 2019) the cooperation was officially established between the states and their representatives with its peak in December 2020. While the alliance may be seen as rational, the authors expect that this type of opportunistic alliance might not survive after the initial reasons for its formation disappear, especially provided that the partners are asymmetrical and geographically far from each other.