The Central African Republic, the soft underbelly of Central Africa

This article considers the relationship between Central Africa as a whole and the Central African Republic (CAR), which is undergoing a process of military regionalisation and economic isolation. In a context of war, these seemingly opposing developments support and strengthen one another. However, they vary in their spatial deployment: each region of the CAR maintains increasingly exclusive relations with its close foreign neighbour, a development that favours the de facto partition of the country.