Brush Fire to Inferno: The Angolan Civil War and Inadvertent Escalation
Introduction
A group of soldiers stand restlessly around the fenced perimeter of an industrial facility, baking in the sweltering midday sun. They pass the time swatting mosquitoes and cursing out their commanding officer for sticking them here. All of a sudden, a rustling in the bushes catches their attention. The rustling stops as soon as it starts, and the leader of these soldiers directs a group to check out the situation. They find nothing. A few minutes later, shots ring out, seemingly out of nowhere, injuring some of the soldiers. They return fire, and after a frenetic firefight that feels much longer than the few minutes it actually lasts, the attackers melt back into the bush. A scene like this is unremarkable in the Cold War. But as it happens, the troops are Cuban, armed with Soviet weapons, the facility they are guarding is an American oil rig, and the attackers are South African-backed Angolan guerillas.
Such was the Angolan Civil War, a brutal conflict that ran between 1975-2002 and claimed up to 800,000 lives. Coming on the heels of the Angolan War of Independence (1961-1975), the Angolan Civil War was an odd bird among the so-called “proxy wars” that dotted the Third World during the Cold War because neither the US nor the USSR thought that Angola was particularly important. In fact, the chain of events that saw the US and USSR increase their participation and enable the conflict to transform from sporadic violence among local groups to large-scale conventional warfare can be chalked down to unintentional signaling, misunderstandings, and communication failures.
By analyzing the ways in which these errors fueled networks of conflict throughout Southern Africa, we can draw lessons about the necessity of clear communication between great power rivals. Through careful consideration of how US actions are likely to be viewed by rivals and allies, policy can be formed that avoids foreseeable misinterpretations. Additionally, a better understanding of the nuanced relationship between client states and patron states will enable the US to better comprehend and exploit complex international dynamics to achieve favorable outcomes.
In the catalog of Cold War conflicts, Angola is particularly important to study because the period covered was notably unstable and saw the US wrestle with a highly competitive geopolitical climate. The build-up to the Angolan Civil War ran from 1974-1975, a time when America’s failure in the Vietnam War seriously undermined domestic confidence in the utility of US military power and the confidence of US allies, specifically in Washington’s ability to defeat pro-communist forces and its willingness to absorb casualties and financial costs in the defense of allies. An increasingly assertive USSR exploited this period of apparent US retrenchment to expand its military, political, and ideological influence across the developing world and modernize its nuclear and conventional forces.
This closely parallels the contemporary landscape where US military strength has proven insufficient to effectively deter state and non-state adversaries in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, and Washington’s willingness to commit to significant, long-term development efforts in regions of persistent instability and strategic value appear to be waning. China has made deep inroads into regions like Micronesia and East Africa, areas that were either under US influence or not sites of significant competition in prior years. More countries, including most of Western and Central Europe, that previously had little choice but to rely on the US for security or who were comfortable in their dependence are now weighing their options more carefully. Choices include recommitment to the US, which may require sacrifices to more closely align domestic and foreign policy with American preferences; the development of independent or regional defense capabilities apart from the US, incurring major ongoing expenses; or reaching a modus vivendi with America’s strategic rivals, most prominently Iran, Russia, and China.
Background
Angola had been a Portuguese colony for centuries when local groups initiated violent resistance against Lisbon in 1961. The primary resistance groups were the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and later the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). The MPLA drew its support from urban, educated Angolans and those of the Ambundu ethnicity, and was ideologically socialist. The FNLA was largely supported by Kikongo speakers in northern Angola, while UNITA arose in response to the lack of representation for Ovimbundu peoples in southern Angola.
During the Angolan War of Independence (1961-1974), foreign powers were involved from the very beginning. Beginning in the early 1960s, the US, largely through Zaire, provided funds to the FNLA and to a lesser extent, UNITA, though funding to both was mostly cut off in 1969 as part of the Nixon Administration’s efforts to improve relations with White-minority regimes in Africa. While American aid was cut off or slowed to a trickle, contacts were maintained with each organization. The USSR began funding the MPLA in the mid-1960s, but the tap was turned on and off as Soviet officials were generally unimpressed with the MPLA’s combat effectiveness and ideological purity. China provided arms and training to all three groups as late as 1974, with the FNLA receiving the largest portion. South Africa began funding both UNITA and the FNLA at a low level no later than summer 1974.
Each of Angola’s major resistance groups collaborated with the Portuguese against rival organizations, contributing to a military stalemate. The deadlock would only be broken in April 1974 when disaffected Portuguese officers carried out the Carnation Revolution, a bloodless coup that overthrew the Estado Novo regime, in power since 1933. Portugal’s new leaders quickly set about decolonization, releasing their hold on Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea. In what should have been a joyous occasion, the culmination of 13 years of war, it also revived and deepened the conflicts between the three major resistance movements, who now lacked even a common enemy. Months of uncertainty over who would control Angola gave way to skirmishes and then full-scale fighting. By January 1975, the FNLA, UNITA, and the MPLA signed the Alvor Agreement, which ordered the formation of an inclusive transitional government and set October of that year as the date for an election.
However, this quickly broke down. The FNLA in particular understood that its limited appeal beyond the Kikongo community doomed it to minority status in a democratic system. It was clear that the MPLA’s popular ideology and sophisticated organizational structures favored it in elections. On the other hand, the FNLA had a military advantage in January 1975, and it attempted to use this to seize power, attacking a radio station sympathetic to the MPLA. While there is no evidence that the US encouraged this attack, it failed to publicly condemn it or cut off contact with the FNLA. This lack of a response could have easily been understood by the USSR as tacit support, and appears that the FNLA thought similarly. Between their weak electoral prospects and a sense that Washington supported or at least didn’t object to their actions, the FNLA escalated its attacks throughout early 1975.
The USSR probably identified this as an attempt by the US to seize control of the country. As early as October 1974, a report from the KGB’s Deputy Chairman identified US support to the FNLA as a threat. In response to the FNLA’s attacks, the USSR, among other socialist nations, sent large quantities of weapons to the MPLA, enabling them to hold out and then push the FNLA back.
Signaling and Insignificance
At this time, the US was dealing with the collapse of South Vietnam, a crisis that monopolized the attention of key officials and intelligence personnel. US officials were also preparing for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) II talks with the USSR, intended to limit nuclear weapons stockpiles and proliferation. This may have contributed to a lack of focus paid to unfolding events in Angola, and how the US response, or lack thereof, would contribute to foreign perceptions that Washington aimed to seize control of Angola through UNITA and the FNLA.
Increased Soviet aid was understood by the US as an attempt to gain influence in Angola as a means of expanding Moscow’s global reach and discrediting the United States. With the Eastern Bloc having scored a major victory in Vietnam, anything that appeared to indicate further Soviet expansion, even in a far-flung corner of Africa, played into American fears of Soviet encroachment. This fear elicited a response in the form of financial and later military assistance to anti-communist Angolan groups, but even this response appears to have been the exception that proves the rule regarding the US view of Angola.
New US funding to Angolan groups during the spring of 1975 was paltry: $300,000 for the FNLA and $100,000 for UNITA. By comparison, the US provided upwards of $700 million in aid to South Vietnam in 1975. No US officials involved in determining that sum could have imagined that this would be enough for the FNLA to win elections given the MPLA’s major advantage in popularity and organization, let alone enough to wage and win an armed conflict.
It appears likely that this amount was aimed at providing the illusion of support, without any expectation that it would make a difference. In fact, much of US policy towards Angola in these critical months was hardly centered on Angola at all, despite the rapidly escalating conflict. Instead, Washington’s policy on Angola was heavily shaped by a desire to project confidence and support to anti-communist groups in the wake of the Fall of Saigon. To the extent Angola policy at this time was directed towards a particular nation, it was Zaire.
Angola, and in fact Southern Africa as a whole, was not considered a region of importance for US national security. A 1969 National Security Council report concluded that nowhere in Africa was a vital security interest for the United States. Yet, the region contained opportunities to signal to allies around the world that the US remained powerful and assertive. As it applied to Southern Africa, the US was concerned with Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire’s dictator, who was a major FNLA supporter and increasingly wavering in his support of the United States.
Allegedly, it was this concern that motivated Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, to dispense with his previous reluctance to intervene in Angola, convincing President Gerald Ford to authorize Operation IA Feature, a CIA covert operation that dispensed $14 million in arms and funding to the FNLA and UNITA in July 1975, with an additional $25 million in August. It was also around this time that the South Africans aggressively expanded their support for these groups, fearful that a socialist Angola would serve as a base for anti-apartheid and pro-Namibian independence groups.
Understandably, these actions emboldened the FNLA and UNITA and confirmed Soviet suspicions that the US was hoping to dominate Angola, and were thus met with further expansions of Soviet aid. This allowed the scale of fighting to grow out of control until the Alvor Agreement became mere words on paper.
Some US officials viewed Angola as an arena that could be used for signaling, without properly considering how their actions would be perceived by both enemies and putative allies. In particular, the initiation of Operation IA Feature was, at least in part, motivated by a desire to signal to Mobutu and other allies that, even with the Fall of Saigon, the US was not willing to allow Soviet influence to expand unimpeded. However, Moscow interpreted US actions very differently.
As it applies more generally, no country should be considered irrelevant to the larger geopolitical landscape. Even nations that may well have little immediate strategic value border those that do and could easily become the site of great power competition. Accurately understanding the geopolitical and national security value of each state is even more important during a period of strategic realignment, when rivals either see opportunities to advance their own interests or fear the dominant power (in this case the US) may attempt to reassert itself. The world is experiencing this today with China’s increasing regional assertiveness and persistent challenge to the Western-led international system, Russia’s continuing attempt to conquer Ukraine, and instability in the Middle East, when adversaries are likely to be highly reactive.
The Best of Friends? A Failure to Grasp Client-Patron Dynamics
US misconceptions about the relationship between Cuba and the USSR also helped to push Washington towards a greater role in Angola and to extend the war. Cuba provided aid and intelligence to the MPLA in the mid-1960s, but declined requests for more extensive quantities of military equipment and advisors.
However, as the conflict between the MPLA and FNLA grew, and with perceptions of US involvement rising, Cuban President Fidel Castro reversed his position. Instead of prevaricating on aid, Castro now offered the MPLA far more than they asked for. When MPLA President Agosthino Neto requested 100 Cuban military advisors in August 1975, Castro promised 500. Later in the month, Castro went to Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev to make the case for expanding aid to the MPLA. He proposed that Cuban special forces deploy to Angola and requested Soviet logistical aid to help Havana transport its men and materiel.
From this point on, Cuba consistently pushed the envelope on aid to the MPLA, often dragging the USSR along with it. This posed an issue because the commonly held view among much of the US national security community at the time was that Cuba was a puppet of the Soviet Union, a tool that could provide plausible deniability when the Kremlin wanted to take aggressive action. In reality, Soviet-Cuban relations were much more complex. Moscow often resented the cavalier approach Havana took to aiding socialists abroad, while Cuba found the Soviet approach to be noncommittal and weak-kneed.
This distinction was largely lost in Angola, where Cuban actions were generally taken to be representative of Soviet intentions by the US. The Soviet Union was in a difficult position on this point. It was essential to emphasize that Cuba’s military intervention was not part of a Kremlin plan, not least because it was true. At the same time, Moscow was reluctant to openly voice the complex relationship it had with Havana on this issue, as doing so would have been an admission that the Eastern Bloc was not as united as it claimed.
This predicament resulted in Soviet officials resorting to evasions and denials when engaged by their American counterparts. When Henry Kissinger attempted to discuss Angola with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko, the latter batted him off with the unconvincing claim that, “we have nothing to do with that country. I cannot talk about that country.” Surely, statements like this did not inspire confidence on the US side that the Soviets were being honest about their role, nor that they were willing to negotiate on the issue.
Implications for Contemporary Great Power Competition
The Angolan Civil War was not predestined to last a generation, nor to be as destructive as it was. While the post-colonial environment was ripe for internal instability, power struggles, and conflict, it was the involvement of foreign powers like the USSR, United States, Cuba, and South Africa that enabled the war to become a disaster for the Angolan people and a major contributor to the failure of detente. The United States cannot be assigned all the blame, and for most of the war Washington confined itself to a secondary role, but the actions and assumptions the United States and USSR made about Angola, each other’s motivations, and the nations involved were critical in the chain of escalation.
American policymakers viewed Angola as insignificant, a canvas on which to signal without thoroughly considering the ramifications said signaling could have. In a new age of Great Power Competition, today’s policymakers must be cognizant that, in an increasingly interconnected and near-instantaneous information space, the eyes of the world are monitoring their every action. Furthermore, in an age of renewed geopolitical competition for influence, no great power can afford to regard any state as inconsequential.
American policymakers, especially on the political side, failed to understand that the USSR and Cuba were not in lockstep. They assumed, often against the advice of the intelligence community, that Havana was simply Moscow’s puppet. In turn, this led to the mistaken belief that the Soviet Union was not looking to de-escalate or end the war in Angola.
As it applies to Great Power Competition today, the lesson here must be that client states still retain their own national will and goals which sometimes conflict with those of the patron state. Identifying and understanding these distinctions is critical to avoid unnecessary escalations, while cleavages between client and patron states can potentially be leveraged to disrupt cooperation. Whether confronting Iran’s network of client states and militias or China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia, resisting the tendency to sort nations into neat blocs will serve to avoid unnecessarily alienating potential partners.
In the case of the Soviet Union, Moscow failed to properly communicate the nuances of its position, falling back on unconvincing denials and thus giving the impression that they were not looking to engage in Angola. Today, it remains increasingly vital to maintain effective communications with rivals in order to avoid strategic misunderstanding and escalation, while offering competitor states palatable exit strategies as a means of de-escalation. While open dialogue is certainly not a panacea for conflict, frank communication enables nations to dispel the most paranoid and dangerous interpretations of a rival’s actions. Therefore, continued engagement amongst geopolitical competitors must be maintained to mitigate the potential for conflagration. In a world where US attention and state power resources are stretched between the home front, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, accidental conflicts are an unacceptable and unsustainable waste of resources.
Conclusion
In 1974 and 1975, the United States and Soviet Union made critical errors and omissions that fueled the rise of the Angolan Civil War. The lessons drawn from such errors remain highly salient in the contemporary geopolitical environment, which sees the United States engaged in both great power competition and proxy warfare as it seeks to maintain its global political and military primacy.
As the US moves to politically, economically, and militarily counter geopolitical challenges through regional partnerships, Washington must identify and consider how a potential American policy will be perceived regionally and globally. Washington’s relations with partners and client states must be based upon a mutual understanding of strategic need to avoid perceptions of exploitation that would undermine American legitimacy and exacerbate regional tensions. Within great power competition, geopolitical adversaries must maintain open backchannels in order to avoid unnecessary escalation due to misinterpretations.
Integrating the lessons learned from involvement in the Angolan Civil War into contemporary policy formations demands an unvarnished understanding of America’s global reputation and the perceptions of allies, partners, and rivals. Effective policy demands a commitment to conducting accurate analysis of smaller states and non-state actors and related non-state actors, including their relations with larger powers. And it necessitates open channels of communication that provide great power rivals with off-ramps. These channels need to be maintained even in times of poor relations or when dialogue is currently proving unproductive. Embedding these approaches as a standard aspect of decision-making will significantly reduce the risk of inadvertent escalation, ensuring that the United States can conserve its resources and attention for key national security interests and avoid wasteful conflict.
Special thanks to Thomas Lattanzio, whose suggestions and encouragement were indispensable in writing and publishing this piece.
