The Foreign Service Journal, May 2008

Looking Back at the Cold War in Africa Even before the fall of the Soviet Union, many analysts had already concluded that U.S. policy toward Africa dur- ing the Cold War was totally dominated by a determina- tion to prevent Soviet influence from gaining a major foothold on the continent. Certainly, both Republican and Democratic administrations consistently invoked the perils of Soviet communism in requesting economic and military assistance appropriations for African nations before congressional committees. Starting in the mid-1970s, human rights groups stepped up their criticism of American support for gross human rights violators and extremely corrupt regimes in Africa. Why else would the U.S. be so generous to President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and President Samuel Doe of Liberia, two of the most corrupt African rulers, if not for their total support for U.S. anti-Soviet policies in the U.N. and elsewhere? Weren’t the U.S. and the Soviet Union fighting a surrogate Cold War in Africa through their respective friends? In fact, there was very little actual tension in Africa between the U.S. and the Soviets, with two exceptions: Angola and Ethiopia. In 1974-1975, these two large nations both experienced deep, violent instability as Marxist revolutionaries replaced regimes that had been friendly to the United States. In Angola, Portuguese rule collapsed in the wake of a pro-democracy coup in Lisbon, while the feudal Ethiopian regime of Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by radical military officers. The two new Marxist regimes faced strong military challenges. In Angola, pro-Western guerrilla groups such as UNITA received support from South Africa. As for Ethiopia, the neighboring government of Somalia took advantage of the chaos to invade the southeastern region where the population is predominantly Somali. Both of the new regimes called upon the Cuban government for military assistance. Fidel Castro responded by sending two expeditionary outfits of 5,000 troops each to both countries, effectively saving their governments from col- lapse. The Soviets followed this up with substantial logis- F O C U S M A Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 21