The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War

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Peter Polack

The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War

South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War

Peter Polack

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English

Casemate
01 May 2025

African history; Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000; Military history: post WW2 conflicts; Battles & campaigns

As the Soviet Union teetered on the edge of collapse during the late 1980s, and America prepared to claim its victory, a bloody war still raged in Southern Africa, where proxy forces from both sides vied for control of Angola. The result was the largest battle on the dark continent since Al Alamein, with forces from both sides paying in blood what

As the Soviet Union teetered on the edge of collapse during the late 1980s, and America prepared to claim its victory, a bloody war still raged in Southern Africa, where proxy forces from both sides vied for control of Angola. The result was the largest battle on the dark continent since Al Alamein, with forces from both sides paying in blood what U.S.-Soviet diplomats were otherwise spending in diplomacy.

The socialist government of Angola and its army, FAPLA, fully stocked with Soviet weapons, had only to wipe out a massive resistance group, UNITA, secretly supplied by the U.S, in order to claim full sovereignty over the country. A giant FAPLA offensive so threatened to succeed in overcoming UNITA that apartheid-era South Africa stepped in to protect its own interests. The white army crossing the border prompted the Angolan government to call on their own foreign reinforcements-the army of Communist Cuba's.

Thus began the epic battle of Cuito Cuanavale, largely unknown in the U.S., but which raged for three months in the entirely odd match-up of South African Boers vs. Castro's armed forces, which for the first time in the Cold War proved what it could achieve. And it turned out the Cubans were very good.

The South Africans were no slouches at warfare themselves, but had suffered under a boycott of weapons since 1977. The Cubans and Angolan troops, instead, had the latest Soviet weapons, easily delivered. But UNITA had its secret U.S. supply line and the South Africans knew how to fight, mainly at a disadvantage in air power for lack of spare parts. Meantime the Cubans overcame their logistic difficulties with an impressive airlift of troops over the Atlantic, while the Boers simply needed to drive next door.

As a case study of ferocious fighting between East and West-albeit proxies for the great powers on all sides-this book unveils a remarkable episode of the end-game of the Cold War largely unknown to the public. The Angolans on both sides suffered heavily, but it was the apartheid South Africans versus Castro's armed forces that provides utter fascination in one of history's rare match-ups.

AUTHOR: Peter Polack was formerly a criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands, where his career spanned several decades. He is the author of The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2018). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013) and part-time reporter for Reuters News Agency. His work has been published in Small Wars Journal, Defence Procurement International, American Intelligence Journal, the Military Times, Foreign Policy News, the Miami Herald, Reuters, the Toronto Star and the New York Times. His upcoming book is entitled Soviet Spies Worldwide: Country by Country, 19401988.

By: Peter Polack
Imprint: Casemate
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781636245256
ISBN 10: 1636245250
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 01 May 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Peter Polack was formerly a criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands, where his career spanned several decades. He is the author of The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2018). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013) and part-time reporter for Reuters News Agency. His work has been published in Small Wars Journal, Defence Procurement International, American Intelligence Journal, the Military Times, Foreign Policy News, the Miami Herald, Reuters, the Toronto Star and the New York Times. His upcoming book is entitled Soviet Spies Worldwide: Country by Country, 1940–1988.

Reviews for The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War

""Author Peter Polack chronicles a critical clash in The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War - an exciting, illuminating study ....Polack strives mightily to achieve balance and fairness in covering Cuito Cuanavale combat. And until researchers gain unfettered access to official Cuban and Angolan sources, his methodology remains our only option. Interested in Cold War conflict? Grab this book. Recommended!""-- ""Cybermodeler"" ""Despite a dearth of primary source materials from the Cuban and Angolan governments, Polack has crafted a fluent and captivating narrative of a pivotal battle that will advance the sparse existing scholarship on the events that took place between late 1987 and early 1988. No one book can be all things to all readers. Military histories, in particular, attract a variety of readers for many different reasons. While not the definitive history of Angola's place in the Cold War[4], The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War does offer a detailed examination of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale that will assist military historians concerned to understand the value of specific armaments in determining the outcomes of proxy wars in the Cold War era.""-- ""Michigan War Studies Review"" ""...both accurate and comprehensive...an accurate reflection of the events ...will dispel the myth known as the Battle for Cuito Cuanavale...""--Fred Oelschig, SADF Senior Liaison Officer with UNITA 1987/88 strongly recommend Polack's book to those of us who want a relatively short, but comprehensive and honest view of the Cuito Cuanavale battles of 1987 and 1988. Something better than the usual one-sided propaganda or high-faluting tomes. And something more than some of the very good, but limited descriptions of single battles of what turned out to be a rather much wider 'little war'.""--Willem Rate