In the 1960s and early 1970s, Portugal conducted large scale counterinsurgency operations in Angola, Portuguese Guinea and Mozambique against independentist guerrillas supported by the Eastern Bloc and China, as well by some Western countries. Although these campaigns are collectively known as the "Portuguese Colonial War", there were in fact three different ones: the Angolan Independence War, the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence and the Mozambican War of Independence. The situation was unique in that small armed forces – those of Portugal – were able to conduct three counterinsurgency wars at the same time, in three different theatres of operations separated by thousands of kilometers. For these operations, Portugal developed its own counterinsurgency doctrine.