Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2021
No one is happy with the Reagan Administration’s southern Africa foreign policy strategy known as constructive engagement. Liberals object to the tilt towards South Africa, to the linkage of Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola to the Namibian negotiations; to the resulting moribund state of those negotiations; and to the deemphasis of human rights and development issues in favor of increased emphasis on military and security issues. Conservatives object to economic assistance packages for African socialist and self-styled states; to the declining U.S. support of Jonas Savimbi’s ostensibly pro-Western UNITA forces in Angola; to Administration efforts to improve relations between the United States and the Marxist states of Angola and Mozambique; and to the Administration’s apparent willingness to accept a SWAPO (i.e., communist guerrilla) outcome in Namibia.