Why Many Nigeriens Want Russia in and the West Out

In Time, Pardee Center Research Associate Adam Szymanski-Burgos and I explain how the U.S. and Europe are poised to fall further and further behind their geopolitical competitors in terms of aid, trade, arms transfers, and diplomatic engagement on the African continent—key sources of international influence. Unless Western leaders change tack, Western publics should prepare for more waving of the white, blue, and red—Russia’s tricolor flag—than of the American red, white, and blue in capitals beyond Niamey, Niger.