Throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s, the development of South Africa's military equipment, including the assets of the South African Air Force (SAAF), became increasingly influenced by the changes in fortune and demands imposed by the lengthy South African Border War. Having originally been started as a limited-scale counter-insurgency campaign, it progressively escalated into a larger conflict that was being waged across areas of both South-West Africa (modern-day Namibia) and southern Angola against militants of the Communist-leaning South-West African People's Organisation (SWAPO). As South African forces came to frequently launch raids into neighbouring Angola, these attacks often provoked armed clashes with the members of the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA), which was at that time bolstered by the provision of Soviet armaments alongside a sizeable contingent of Cuban troops dispatched to intervene in the theatre. During November 1985, FAPLA began acquiring more sophisticated combat aircraft and radar installations; gradually, the addition of these improved assets enabled air superiority over southern Angola to be seized from South Africa's expeditionary forces, rendering offensive operations more risky to conduct and increasingly the likelihood of losses.