Russia's Quiet Rise in Africa

originally posted by: DeepThoughtCriminal
This isn't news?

There have been Russians loitering around Africa for years. Lots of Russians in Egypt. A friend of mine from Egypt is learning Russian because of all the Russians in Egypt; it's good business sense. A lot of Russian and CIS businesses operate throughout Africa. A big industry is the cargo flight business, which goes hand in hand with the black market arms trade. When I was in Uganda we were met by Russians who lived there. Us little sh*ts pop up everywhere.

There are also a lot of natural resources in Africa, and it's been attracting plenty of Russian and Chinese investors for some time now. During the life of the CCCP the Soviets began to forge connections in Africa, so there's an existing basis in several African countries for relations with Russia and CIS states.

It's a bit annoying when people start going on about Russian and Chinese investors being "suspicious" purely on the basis that they are investing in regions with comparatively few Western investors.

Calm down, Putin is not going to become Boss of All Africa and send armies of Russian speaking black people to take down the West.

Although whilst we're at it, why hasn't the West taken advantage of business opportunities in Africa? Obviously there is some Western investment, but you're lagging behind Russians and Chinese.

This is the question I have wondered about for a long time also. There's a plethora of natural resources in Africa so why hasn't the West ever invested more heavily in that part of the World? Now with China taking the lead in African investment, the US seems to be gaining interest. But why only now?