Since the early 1960s, the Portuguese overseas provinces in Africa had been struggling for independence, but the government in Lisbon, was not willing to concede it, and Salazar sent troops to fight the guerrillas and the terrorism of the independence movements. By 1970, the war in Africa was consuming as much as 40% of the Portuguese budget, and there was no solution in sight. At a military level, despite the containment of the various independence movements with differentiating levels of success, their impending presence and their failure to disappear dominated public anxiety. Throughout the war, Portugal also faced increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions imposed by most of the international community.