 The commitment to fighting communism and the US’s previous relationship with Holden Roberto trumped the opinions of the dissenters and the US continued to support the FNLA. 
US weapons, foreign mercenaries, and Zairian and South African forces were unable to defeat the MPLA with their Cuban and Soviet allies and American involvement declined during the following years under the Carter administration. The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan brought the US back into the fold of the Angolan Civil War, with continued support of UNITA.
Though UNITA achieved some military victories with the help of the SADF, particularly at Cuito-Cuanavale in 1988 where they beat off a large attack by MPLA and Cuban forces, it became increasingly clear that neither side would gain an upper hand and that most of the military successes on both sides were due to the Cuban and South African forces. As both Cuba and South Africa agreed to leave Angola where they were both essentially fighting another country’s war for them, US support for UNITA also decreased and under the Bush and Clinton administrations closer ties were made with the MPLA and it was recognized diplomatically as the legitimate government of Angola. With the Cold War over and its oil interests safe, the US had little reason to be actively supporting rebel movements in Angola.
	China was the third superpower to project its power in Angola. Chinese involvement was mostly limited to the first two decades of war and was rooted in its opposition to Soviet expansion coming out of the Sino-Soviet split. This anti-Sovietism held together the curious alliance of two African nationalist groups (the FNLA and UNITA), Zaire, apartheid South Africa, communist China, and the United States. Starting with the training of UNITA operatives in Beijing during the late-1960s, Chinese support eventually rested primarily on the FNLA. After the events of 1974–1976, China was discouraged by the course of the war and withdrew its military advisors and materiel aid.
	The Angolan War of Independence together with the Angolan Civil War cost hundreds of thousands of Angolans their lives, and occupied the country for over forty years. The effects of the conflict are still felt today as thousands of landmines make farming in many areas very dangerous and tensions between different ethnic and political groups still exist, though not on the scale it previously did. 
	The underlying causes of the long conflict are many and complicated, having their roots in nearly five centuries of disruptive Portuguese rule in which millions of Angolans were enslaved or forced into labor and the population was divided into a racial hierarchy that led to distrust and resentment between groups. 
	Constant internal factionalism and massive foreign intervention prolonged and intensified the conflict, leading to one of the most devastating wars on the African continent. The past eight years have been relatively peaceful for Angola and the economy has been growing at a rapid rate, though much of this is due to oil revenues and expansion of the oil industry. A fledging democracy is forming.


