The Neglected Tragedy: the Return to War in Angola, 1992–3

Abstract

Thestate system during the so-called ‘cold war’ rested on a paradox. Peace and stability in the developed countries was accompanied by scores of ‘hot’ wars in the Third World, fuelled and at times created by the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies. Each superpower had a high incentive to arm client states and rebel armies, in return for political loyalty and access to primary products. Nowhere did the logic of this system have such negative effects as in Africa. There, the result was the militarisation of states, the escalation of wars, and the strengthening of authoritarian forms of rule.