Is Algeria ushering in a new military doctrine by sending a squadron of four Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets, along with a tanker aircraft, to Niger? Through this military intervention—limited, certainly, but unprecedented—the Algiers regime is probably seeking to kill several birds with one stone. Above all, the aim appears to be to break the suffocating domestic, regional and international isolation paralyzing both the country and its regime, while signing on to Moscow’s efforts, currently in full swing, to establish a “Pax Russica” in the Sahel.
