Angola: A Modern Military History, 1961-2002

This study is the first comprehensive assessment of warfare in Angola to cover all three phases of the nation’s modern history: the anti-colonial struggle, the Cold War phase, and the post-Cold War era. It is also the first to cover, in detail, the final phase of warfare in Angola, 1998-2002, culminating in Jonas Savimbi’s death and the signing of the Luena Accord. Author Stephen L.Weigert offers a controversial account of the strategy of guerrilla warfare employed by the Unita insurgency as well as an assessment of the role and significance of leadership in insurgency. He challenges the conventional view of Jonas Savimbi as a “student of Mao Zedong” and demonstrates that his strategy of guerrilla warfare represented a more complex and nuanced adaptation of additional influences, notably Colonel George Grivas of the 1950s Cyprus insurgency. Moreover, this account also urges the reader to consider Savimbi’s “charisma” as a character trait which blinded and distracted many from a more sober assessment of his political inclinations (reformer or revolutionary) and his abilities as a military commander.