The Cold War was mainly an arms race between the US and the Soviet Union. Both countries were building up large quantities of nuclear weapons. But it was also a battle between communism and capitalism. Even though the Soviet Union was never technically communist, they said that they were in order to create fear. The US felt that a free market, capitalism, was the only way to achieve social freedom. So where does Mozambique fit into the picture? Mozambique at the time of the Cold War, was very socialist, bordering communist. The US really didn't want this. They had tried in the 1970's to put a stop to socialist Mozambique through Renamo, but that proved unsuccessful. Now the Soviet Union was seeing Mozambique as a possible base in Africa. The US really didn't want that. So what did they do? They went into Mozambique first. Though there was never open fighting in the country itself, the US and Soviet Union were both trying to win the favor of Mozambique. The US took the larger initiative and actually worked people into the government in hopes of interfering with any plans to support the Soviet Union. Luckily, Mozambique never openly declared choosing a side in that war and managed to dodge what could have been a really painful bullet. The US left fairly quickly, but still kept a watch on Mozambique.