1980s in Angola

In the 1980s in Angola, fighting spread outward from the southeast, where most of the fighting had taken place in the 1970s, as the African National Congress (ANC) and SWAPO increased their activity. The South African government responded by sending troops back into Angola, intervening in the Angolan Civil War for much of the decade. Throughout the 1980s, the Angolan Civil War was a central proxy Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union aiding the MPLA government and the United States supporting UNITA, an anti-communist resistance movement.

The Soviet Union delivered massive amounts of military aid to the Angolan government from 1981 to 1986. In 1984 alone, the Soviet Union provided the Angolan government with over US$2 billion in military and other aid. In 1981, newly-elected U.S. president Ronald Reagan's U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester Crocker, developed a linkage policy, tying Namibian independence to Cuban withdrawal and peace in Angola.

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