Essentially, Cuba's government knew firsthand the difficulties of a leftist uprising against a western backed government, as it had experienced the same conflict two decades earlier in its own revolution against the Batista regime. Like many independence movements in Africa that stood against colonial hegemony from European powers, Angola's revolutionary independence movement was very leftist in nature. The MPLA was the communist paramilitary group/ political party that played the major role in seeking and fighting for Angolan independence from Portuguese rule, along with several other political movements in the nation. After independence was gained, the MPLA emerged as a dominant power in Angola along with UNITA, an anti-communist party/paramilitary.

The Angolan Civil War would quickly begin between these two groups and their allies. Cuba had the opportunity of gaining a new close ally in Africa, as it had shown support with financial and military aid to other leftist movements in Africa as well (Cuba intervened on behalf of Ethiopia in their war with Somalia at around the same time, as well as supporting leftist independence movement in Mozambique as well).

Cuba also had a victory to gain against the increasingly weak apartheid government of South Africa, with which tension ran fairly deep, as Cuba had openly supported the anti-apartheid movement building in South Africa since the early 1960s and openly supported groups like the ANC/Umkonto We Sizwe and the South African Communist Party. After South Africa militarily intervened on behalf of UNITA forces, Cuba committed to sending large amounts of its own armed forces to fight on behalf of MPLA forces in a high-tension proxy war. This war helped hammer at the South African regime's credibility and stability and helped to bring a collapse to the South African apartheid government.