Arthur J Klinghoffer - The Angolan War: A Study in Soviet Policy in the Third World

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The Angolan War: A Study in Soviet Policy in the Third World Arthur Jay Klinghoffer

The Angolan War of 1975-1976 focused international attention on an area -long relegated to the sidelines of world diplomacy and accented the historical momentum toward black control of southern African states. This book is the first to examine why a localized conflict in a remote area was the object of such extensive global concern. Dr. Klinghoffer discusses both the Soviet and the Cuban roles in Angola and evaluates the decisive change in Soviet foreign policy that, subsequently, caused the United States to question the very nature of Soviet-American detente. He answers the key question of whether the Soviet Union followed an overall plan for Angola or developed its policy over time, in reaction to the behavior of the United States, China, South Africa, Zaire, Portugal, and other political actors.

Arthur Jay Klinghoffer is professor of political science at Rutgers University and has traveled extensively in Africa (including Angola) and the Soviet Union. He is the author of numerous books, including Soviet Perspectives on African Socialism and The Soviet Union and International Oil Politics, and has had articles published in such journals as Africa Report , African Affairs, and International Relations.

Arthur Jay Klinghoffer

First published 1980 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2019 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Klinghoffer, Arthur Jay, 1941
The Angolan War.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Angola--History--Revolution, 1961-1975--Foreign participation,
Russian. 2. Angola--Foreign relations--Russia. 3. Russia--Foreign relations
--Angola. I. Title.
DT611.75.K6 327.67'3'047 80-18215

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-29012-2 (hbk)

The Angolan war of 1975-76 focused international attention on an area long relegated to the sidelines of world diplomacy and accentuated the historic momentum toward black control of southern African states. Angola's rise from the torpidity of Portugal's African empire and the involvement of external powers in its affairs have led to extensive and embittered controversy over regional political trends. Furthermore, the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertao de Angola) victory in Angola has served to broaden the scope of contention by giving added impetus to black nationalist movements in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, Namibia, and South Africa. Angola must surely be analyzed within its own historical and cultural context but it has also become something much larger, an international symbol which has transcended its intrinsic importance, and its elevation to this plane of symbolism must be explained as well. Why was a localized conflict in a remote area the object of such extensive global concern and why did the Soviet role in Angola have such an impact on the course of Soviet foreign policy, and on the Soviet-American detente relationship as well? Angola has clearly influenced contemporary attitudes toward international relations as it has already joined Yalta and Vietnam as pulsating schizoid facets of the Western political psyche.

Prior to the Portuguese revolution of April 1974, Angola was not viewed as strategically essential by either the United States or the Soviet Union. However, the revolution introduced the crucial element of surprise and its unsettling effect on Angolan affairs sent each state scurrying for an effective policy to counter the perceived threat from the other. Diplomatic somnambulism gave way to frenetic political activity and largely extraneous concerns were superimposed over those which were indigenously Angolan. As an editorial in the Nigerian journal West Africa indicated shortly after Angola became independent on November 11, 1975: "Angola is now a