1960s–1990s: (The Cold War as Arms Race and Amplifier of Conflict — Both Superpowers Actively Involved in Virtually Every African War from the 1960s Onward, …

1960s–1990s: (The Cold War as Arms Race and Amplifier of Conflict — Both Superpowers Actively Involved in Virtually Every African War from the 1960s Onward, Kennedy’s Counter-Insurgency Strategy, the CIA Elevating Mobutu, Angola and Mozambique as Theaters of Rival Guerrilla Movements, the Continent Broadly Split Between Two Global Camps by the Early 1970s, an Intense Arms Race Channeling Weaponry to Favored Governments, and the Cold War Blinding External Powers to the Problems of Nascent Nation-States While Enabling African Leaders to Exploit Foreign Support): From the 1960s, both the United States and the USSR became actively involved in African conflicts — there was scarcely a war on the continent not bound up in Cold War politics, especially after Kennedy launched counter-insurgency strategy in the early 1960s. The CIA took an active part in elevating Mobutu, creating superpower rivalry across central Africa that took particular urgency after the 1973 energy crisis. Angola and Mozambique witnessed rival guerrilla movements backed by external powers, while South Africa received Western military hardware and adopted an anti-communist stance regarding the ANC’s leftist leanings. By the early 1970s, the continent was broadly split between the two camps — the US had security agreements with Kenya, Zaire, Ghana, Liberia, and Senegal, while the Soviet Union assisted Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda, and Moscow had treaties of friendship with Marxist Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique. China had military arrangements with Cameroon, Guinea, Mali, and Tanzania, and Cuba with Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea, Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia — amounting to an intense arms race. The Cold War blinded external powers to the problems of nascent states: authoritarianism was not merely accepted but encouraged by both blocs and actively supported. The political retardation of African states suited foreign powers, and many disasters were at least indirectly exacerbated by intervention. Yet the Cold War also enabled African leaders to exploit foreign support for their own ends, buoying up bankrupt regimes and suppressing domestic opposition. The end of the Cold War in 1989–1990 resulted in the withdrawal of foreign support from long-discredited regimes.