The Cold War brought the global struggle between the West and communism to Angola and many other African countries also going through the decolonization process, but nowhere did foreign intervention reach such a large scale or involve so many different parties as in post-colonial Angola. While the United States, China, and the Soviet Union openly or clandestinely funded and armed factions, actual soldiers from Cuba, South Africa, and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) participated in the war on the sides of various factions. In addition to having ideological bases, the rebel groups were also affiliated with particular ethnic groups and other segments of society (such as the urban-rural divide). The situation was complicated by Angola’s massive mineral wealth in oil and diamonds. The legacy of centuries of Portuguese colonial rule also had a heavy bearing on the conflicts.
After an outline of the history of Angola from the period right before European contact until the end of the civil war in 2002, this paper will identify and analyze the various social, political, and economic factors that contributed to the violence and instability of the area in the past half-century.



	Angola is a relatively large country; at 1,246,700 sq. km, it is slightly less than two times the size of Texas. It shares borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the east, Zambia to the southeast, and Namibia to the south. Blessed with rich agricultural land and a tropical climate, it has significant oil reserves, mostly concentrated in the northwestern exclave of Cabinda, and large commercial diamond fields in the northeast. 13,068,161 people (2010 est.) live in Angola, and like most other African countries the population is very young, with a median age of 18. The population is divided into three main ethnic groups: the Ovimbundu in the central highlands (37%), the Mbundu along the coastal plain and around the capital city Luanda (25%), and the Bakongo people of northern Angola (13%), who are also a prominent group in neighboring Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Other African ethnic groups, Europeans, and people of mixed European and African descent (mestiços) make up the rest of the population. Portuguese is the official administrative language, though a significant portion of the population, particularly in rural areas, does not speak it. Various African languages (chiefly Umbundu, Kimbundu, and Kikongo, spoken respectively by the Ovimbundu, Mbundu, and Bakongo peoples) share co-official status with Portuguese and are spoken as mother tongues by much of the population.
	Before the arrival of the Portuguese in the late fifteenth century, southwest Africa was occupied by several Bantu-speaking kingdoms that had displaced previous Pygmy and Khoisan peoples. These states included the large Kongo kingdom situated along the Congo River and the Kimbundu-speaking Kingdom of Ngola to its south, which gave rise to the Portuguese name for the colony. 
First contact with Europeans came in 1483 when an expedition led by Diogo Cão encountered the Kongo kingdom. 