![\"angola\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/07\/angola.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When young Americans are taught about the Cold War, we learn that it was exactly that \u2014 a decades-long standoff based on the threat<\/em> of war, one without mass casualties, tanks and guns. Sure, there were spies, assassinations and intrigue, but even history teachers who cover proxy wars tend to leave out one whopping chapter: Angola\u2019s role as surrogate battleground.<\/p>\n During the Cold War, Angola saw the second-largest American deployment of covert aid.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Only Afghanistan\u2019s mujahideen got more aid from the U.S. And the conflict in Angola was very bloody: By the time the Americans and Soviets backed away, in 1991, hundreds of thousands of people had perished. Angola\u2019s ensuing civil war, which ended in 2002, killed 1.5 million, according to some estimates<\/a>. Turns out the Cold War wasn\u2019t so cold.<\/p>\n It all started with a coup in Portugal \u2014 the colonial rulers of Angola \u2014 that ushered in a wave of Portuguese decolonization of its African territories. The transition was abrupt, and its sudden power vacuum prompted a violent three-way bid for rule. The U.S. threw its support behind Angola\u2019s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, UNITA, and the Soviets backed UNITA\u2019s enemies, the Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA.<\/p>\n The Soviet Union and the U.S. weren\u2019t alone in their meddling. Cuba \u2014 led by an ideological imperative to help install a Marxist regime in power \u2014 partnered up with the Soviets and poured some 50,000 troops into Angola. The U.S., meanwhile, sidled up to apartheid South Africa to send its troops into Angola. Despite all the spending, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger denied involvement in the southwest African country to Congress for years. With the American public reeling from Richard Nixon\u2019s resignation and the conclusion of the disastrous Vietnam War, the CIA did what it does best: It kept its involvement in Angola secret.<\/p>\n Why Angola? Many scholars argue it was far more than a battle for hearts and minds \u2014 the ideological alignment of the powers and their proxies was shaky at best. Instead, the superpowers saw a chance to deplete the other side of weapons and munitions and to maintain physical control of a country valued for its diamonds and oil. The U.S. saw Soviet dominance-by-proxy of Angola as catastrophic, says Keith Somerville, a scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies. It would give them power over parts of the Cape shipping route around the tip of Africa as well as the export of a whole range of minerals \u2014 uranium, copper, platinum, coltan and diamonds \u2014 from its next-door neighbors, he says.<\/p>\n In the end, the Cold War subsided and the superpowers pressured the warring parties into signing peace accords in 1991. The MPLA won the mandated elections (its leader, Jos\u00e9 Eduardo Dos Santos, is still in power today). The U.S. abandoned UNITA and established formal diplomatic relations with Angola. UNITA, in retaliation for its loss, reignited a war that raged on until 2002. No doubt foreign meddling prolonged and deepened the conflict \u2014 including by leaving Angola with the highest number of land mines in the world \u2014 but for many, the persistence of war long after Soviet-American withdrawal shows that the \u201ccore issues were there\u201d and foreign powers \u201cexacerbated the situation with arms and ammunition,\u201d says Alex Vines, Africa researcher at Chatham House.<\/p>\n\n\u00a0\u201cEverything changed\u201d after the Cold War \u201cin terms of the way major powers looked at Africa,\u201d Somerville says. Trade became the name of the game. After all, Angola is the\u00a0second largest oil producer<\/a> in Africa, after Nigeria. Even today, though, UNITA feels slighted. During Hillary Clinton\u2019s visit to the country as Secretary of State, UNITA expressed dismay<\/a> that it did not receive a sit-down with its former Cold War backer. Her likely thoughts: Got oil?<\/div>\n