Raphael Parens
Senior Fellow
Raphael Parens is a Senior Fellow at Delphi Global Research Center and a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). He is an international security analyst focused on Africa and Eurasia. Parens has been published in Foreign Affairs, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) Sentinel, War on the Rocks, and FPRI. His forthcoming book, entitled Moscow’s Mercenaries: The Rise and Fall of the Wagner Group and co-authored with Dr. Colin P. Clarke and Dr. Christopher Faulkner, will be published in the spring of 2026.
Shaping the Security Landscape: How Russia and China Approach the Issue of Security in Africa
China and Russia have increasingly been grouped together as revisionist powers interested and intent on expanding influence across Africa. Both challenge Western political influence, cultivate relationships with authoritarian governments, and present themselves as alternatives to Western partnership models.
4/6/2026
Russia’s Hollow Promises: Mali’s Fuel Blockade Exposes the Myth of Moscow’s Power
Mali’s junta has been caught on the back foot by the al-Qaeda affiliate known as JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin) and by public opinion in the capital, Bamako, leading to a growing chorus of reports that Bamako might fall. Amongst a host of concerns, this outcome would mean that al-Qaeda would take de facto control of a key Sahelian state and could increase the pressure on Mali’s neighbors, Niger and Burkina Faso, to succumb as well.
11/12/2025