Mikhail Nyamweya

Africa is attracting a lot of attention from both the old and the contemporary powers. This is ‘the new scramble’ for Africa. Ideally, the Berlin conference where the colonial powers of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Germany, partitioned the continent is the old scramble. The new scramble has added the United States of America (US), China, Russia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, India, and Qatar but mostly entails the US competition with the emerging prominence of China and covertly Russia’s inroads. The paper looks at the great powers with a focus on Russia and the security implications in the continent. The paper uses secondary data and leans on structural dependency and ‘colonialism’ thesis to look at the great powers’ actions and their implications. Specifically, the paper delves into Russia affiliations in covert deals hence more about transactional ‘business’ and less about diplomatic affairs. Russia’s silenced presence in Africa adds to the conflicts dynamism because of the balancing act some States have to do with their existing characters like; former colonial powers, multi-ethnic & religious composition, differing climatic and economic conditions, also varying governance regime types. The paper argues that, although economically, and militarily weak, States in Africa are exercising African agency in dealing with the great powers to a certain degree, however, comprador regimes remain a security threat to their citizens and the continent at large.


Key Words: Africa, Great-powers, Russia-Africa, China-Africa, Security, France-Africa.