Although southern Africa remained marginal to the Soviet–American relationship in the Cold War era, much of the history of the region in these years was shaped by the ideological confrontation between the superpowers. This theme has attracted little detailed attention in the relevant scholarly literature, perhaps because the connections are often difficult to draw and local actors did not see the struggle between Moscow and Washington as all-important. In southern Africa, the primary process underway in these years was decolonisation, and the residual strength of white settler regimes gave anti-colonial struggles a particular intensity. These struggles pre-dated the onset of the Cold War, but the superpower conflict moulded them in new ways, and played a key role in the transition from colonial and white minority control to black majority rule.

In the decade before the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union supported liberation movements that embarked on armed struggles, while the United States, despite its anti-colonial origins and rhetorical commitment to freedom, remained an ally of the colonial powers and of apartheid South Africa, with which it retained close economic and strategic ties. From the mid-1970s, the United States accepted the need for evolutionary change towards black majority rule. The debate in Washington was then over the pace, and means, of such change. Under Gerald R. Ford and, in particular, Ronald Reagan, the United States sought to prevent regimes allied to the Soviet Union from achieving power or retaining control.