Stability and Support Operations în Angola

1. Introduction

First it was SMALL WARS, then it became LOW INTENSTIY CONFLICT or LIGHT INTENSITY CONFLICT (LIC). Then the Army moved to OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR (OOTW). The JOINT community agreed upon MILITARY OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR (MOOTW) which is the term currently in use. With the redesigning of Army doctrine still being revised under the new FM 100-5, OPERATIONS, new terms and concepts are also being revised and developed. The term STABILITY AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS (SASO) covers two separate and distinct types of missions.

Support Operations provide essential supplies and services to assist designated groups. It relieves suffering and helps civil authorities respond to crises. In most cases, Army forces achieve success by overcoming conditions created by man-made or natural disasters. The ultimate goal of support is to meet the immediate needs of designated groups and to transfer responsibility quickly and efficiently to appropriate civilian authorities. The purpose of support activities, which consist of humanitarian assistance and environmental assistance, are to save lives; reduce suffering; recover essential infrastructure; improve quality of life; and, restore situations to normal. Support operations generally fall into two broad categories: humanitarian assistance and environmental assistance. Humanitarian assistance focuses on the well-being of supported peoples; environmental assistance focuses on the condition of natural environment. Many operations combine both types of support.

Stability Operations apply military power to influence the political and civil environment, to facilitate diplomacy, and to interrupt specified illegal activities. Its purpose is to deter or thwart aggression; reassure allies, friendly governments, and agencies; encourage a weak or faltering government; stabilize a restless area; maintain or restore order; and, enforce agreements and policies. During hostilities, stability helps keep armed conflict from spreading and assist and encourages committed partners. Stability also enables forces to secure support in unstable areas and to prevent civil populations from interfering in ongoing military operations. Similarly, stability missions may require offensive and defensive actions to destroy rogue forces bent on defeating or stability attempts.

2. About Angolan civil war

The Angolan Civil War (1975-2002) began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. Prior to this, a decolonisation conflict had taken place in 1974-75, following the Angolan War of Independence of 1961-74. The Civil War was primarily a struggle for power between two former liberation movements, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Each organisation had different roots in the Angolan social fabric and mutually incompatible leaderships, despite their one-time alliance against the colonial government. Although both the MPLA and UNITA had socialist leanings, for the purpose of mobilising international support they posed as "Marxist-Leninist" and "anti-communist", respectively. A third former movement, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), having fought the MPLA alongside UNITA during the war for independence, played almost no role in the Civil War. Finally, a Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda FLEC, an association of separatist militant groups, fought for the independence of Cabinda.

The 27-year war can be divided roughly into three periods of major fighting - between 1975 and 1991, 1992 and 1994, and 1998 and 2002 - broken up by fragile periods of peace. By the time the MPLA finally achieved victory in 2002, an estimated 500,000 people had been killed, over one million had fled from rural to urban areas, massive damage had been done to Angola's infrastructure, and the nation's public administration, economic enterprises and even religious institutions were in many places in shambles.

The Angolan Civil War reached such dimensions due to the combination of Angola's violent internal dynamics and massive foreign intervention. Both the Soviet Union and the United States considered it critical to the global balance of power and to the outcome of the Cold War, and they and some of their allies put significant effort into making it a proxy war between their two power blocs. The Angolan Civil War ultimately became one of the bloodiest, longest, and most prominent armed conflicts of the Cold War. Moreover, the Angolan conflict became entangled with the Second Congo War in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as with the Namibian War of Independence.