> That's enough to field an army of a considerable size in that region During the Angolan civil war, UNITA was earning over $150 million per year through diamo

> That's enough to field an army of a considerable size in that region During the Angolan civil war, UNITA was earning over $150 million per year through diamond sales on the international market ( back in 1980s money ). In some years they tripled that. But it wasn't enough to maintain sufficiently sophisticated forces to resist the Government forces simply because when you're a pariah, training and experience cannot be purchased at any price. The Angolan Government was able to buy cutting-edge kit but more importantly could hire mercenaries and technical experts ( such as the Israeli team that tracked-down UNITA's leader ) that transformed their use of their equipment, whereas UNITA's kit largely went unused or underused once the South Africans had withdrawn their expertise.