OT: War in Angola

[Webstral]

I’m learning something new about post-WW2 conflict in Subsaharan Africa. I’ve started a new book on the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale I’m not sure yet what application this will have to Twilight. My 3-pages-at-a-time modality hasn’t permitted me to get far enough to say.

Cuito Cuanavale is a village at the confluence of two rivers in southern Angola. The town became the focus of a contest between Communist Angola, Cuba, and the Soviet Union on one side and UNITA and South Africa on the other. In late 1987, the Reds launched an offensive intended to defeat UNITA in southeastern Angola. South Africa had been supporting UNITA as a means of keeping communists from supporting SWAPO in Namibia and to keep SWAPO from gaining safe havens in southern Angola.

I knew that the South Africans had fought in support of UNITA. What I didn’t know was that the South Africans struggled with many of the same problems in Angola as US forces did in Vietnam—namely, the politicians. I also didn’t know that the South Africans did not prevail overwhelmingly. I suppose that makes me a typical Westerner in that I think the South Africans always carried the day on the battlefield. I also did not know that the Soviets and the Cubans often were at odds about how to get things done on the battlefield. All very interesting so far…