Foreign involvement in the South African Border War
During the South African Border War, large numbers of foreign personnel fought or provided material support for both sides. Throughout the conflict, the South African Defence Force (SADF) was backed directly by two Angolan factions fighting in the Angolan Civil War, namely the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).[1] South Africa recruited heavily among Angolan citizens for some of its specialist units, namely 31 Battalion and 32 Battalion.[2] Following the end of the Portuguese Colonial War and the Rhodesian Bush War, the SADF absorbed a number of foreign veterans from those conflicts, namely into elite counter-insurgency units.[3][4]
The People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) established bilateral military relations with a number of sympathetic African states and most constituent nations of the Warsaw Pact.[5] In terms of the volume of financial and military aid the Soviet Union was PLAN's primary supporter.[5][6] From 1970 to 1989, the Soviet government provided the bulk of PLAN's weapons, training, and finances.[7] This was pursued as part of a longstanding Soviet strategy to support anti-colonial movements on the African continent in the hopes of cultivating local socialist clients.[8] Cuba, which had a large military presence in Angola, was also one of PLAN's closest allies.[6] Cuban advisers provided training for PLAN and occasionally fought alongside the insurgents in defensive actions against SADF raids.[6] During the final years of the war, regular Cuban combat troops formed joint battalions with PLAN close to the South West African border, implicitly threatening that territory with a conventional invasion.[6] Apart from Cuba, the Soviet Union also directly or indirectly involved some of its socialist allies in the South African Border War. For instance, North Korea and East Germany trained PLAN recruits at camps in their respective countries.[2] Angola's Marxist government supported PLAN as a proxy to use against its primary domestic opponent, UNITA.[9]
In the context of Cold War politics, the South African Border War has been described as a proxy war, in which rival powers armed, trained, financed, or otherwise encouraged the belligerents.[9] The degree of foreign involvement on behalf of PLAN, especially by the socialist states, compelled the South African government to perceive it was locked in a war by proxy with the Soviet bloc as opposed to a strictly regional or local conflict.[10] Although it refrained from directly taking sides in the conflict between the SADF and PLAN, the United States did cooperate with South African officials to arm UNITA and the FNLA as a proxies against the Angolan regime.[9]
References[edit]
- ↑ Miller, Jamie (2016). An African Volk: The Apartheid Regime and Its Search for Survival. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 166–187, 314. ISBN 978-0190274832. Search this book on
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Dale, Richard (2014). The Namibian War of Independence, 1966-1989: Diplomatic, Economic and Military Campaigns. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers. pp. 84–98. ISBN 978-0786496594. Search this book on
- ↑ Nortje, Piet (2003). 32 Battalion: The Inside Story of South Africa's Elite Fighting Unit. New York: Zebra Press. pp. 54–59. ISBN 1-868729-141. Search this book on
- ↑ Jacklyn Cock, Laurie Nathan (1989). War and Society: The Militarisation of South Africa. New Africa Books. pp. 123–126. ISBN 978-0-86486-115-3. Search this book on
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Udogu, Emmanuel (2011). Liberating Namibia: The Long Diplomatic Struggle Between the United Nations and South Africa. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 121–123. ISBN 978-0786465767. Search this book on
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Vanneman, Peter (1990). Soviet Strategy in Southern Africa: Gorbachev's Pragmatic Approach. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. pp. 41–57. ISBN 978-0817989026. Search this book on
- ↑ Bertram, Christoph (1980). Prospects of Soviet Power in the 1980s. Basingstoke: Palgrave Books. pp. 51–54. ISBN 978-1349052592. Search this book on
- ↑ Magyar, Karl; Danopoulos, Constantine (2002) [1994]. Prolonged Wars: A Post Nuclear Challenge. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific. pp. 260–271. ISBN 978-0898758344. Search this book on
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Hughes, Geraint (2014). My Enemy's Enemy: Proxy Warfare in International Politics. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. pp. 73–86. ISBN 978-1845196271. Search this book on
- ↑ Kangumu, Bennett (2011). Contesting Caprivi: A History of Colonial Isolation and Regional Nationalism in Namibia. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien Namibia Resource Center and Southern Africa Library. pp. 143–153. ISBN 978-3905758221. Search this book on
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