History Main / ColdWar

* UsefulNotes/ColdWar, for works set during this period
* UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheColdWar, a detailed breakdown of the war

Not to be confused with:

* Not to be confused with EscalatingWar, where two individuals emulate the LensmanArmsRace without actual weapons

* Not to be confused with EscalatingWar, where two individuals emulate the LensmanArmsRace without having an actual war

[[redirect:UsefulNotes/ColdWar]]

redirect:UsefulNotes/ColdWar

[[redirect:UsefulNotes/ColdWar]]

-> ''"Yes, our strategy is insane. It's even called [[MeaningfulName MAD]] - MutuallyAssuredDestruction."''

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and dictatorships[[note]]This is arguably the origin of the term 'The West', as Western Europe and its allies were all anti-communist dictatorships (like Franco's Spain) and democracies (like the Fourth French Republic). Since the war's end the term has come to encompass all European-type societies, not just non-communist ones.[[/note]] (led by NATO) and state communism (led by the [[SovietUnion USSR]] and the Warsaw Pact a.k.a the "eastern bloc", with China kind of aligned with them 'til the Sino-Soviet split of '60[[note]]Whereupon, at a few points, World War Three looked more likely to start as a Sino-Soviet conflict[[/note]]). The nature of the 'war' means it didn't have a beginning or end as such, but Churchill's "IronCurtain" speech of 1946 to the Malta meeting of 1990 are popular dates. RedOctober is the earliest start-date, the latest end-date being 25/12/1991, when Mikhail Gorbechev resigned and the [=USSR=] was officially dissolved. There was no direct fighting between the two superpowers[[note]]Excepting the whole 'Korean War' thing, wherein the vast majority of North Korea's troops and pilots were actually Chinese and Soviet 'volunteers'.[[/note]] although many indirect conflicts flared up, with one or both sides backed by one or both sides ([[Main/TheKoreanWar Korea]], [[Main/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]], The Iran-Iraq War, The Angolan Bush War, Afghanistan, etc).

Most famous for the sheer volume of [[AtomicHate nuclear weapons]] stockpiled by several countries, most notably the USSR and the USA.

Highly influential in many a SpyDrama during this period, as setting or BackStory, such as ''Series/{{Airwolf}}'', ''Series/TheATeam'', etc.

Standard plot in western media involves U.S. as goodies, USSR as baddies (of course, it is [[RussianReversal vice versa in Russian media]]). You could also have GeneralRipper come in and accuse our heroes of [[Main/MistakenForSpies being Commie spies]]; or a third party trying to spark the war between two superpowers. May or may not involve an ArchaeologicalArmsRace or two for ([[StupidJetpackHitler Nazi]]) technology.

Now much harder to use for plot ideas, unless you're using missing ex-Soviet weapons as a WeaponOfMassDestruction or unemployed Soviet scientists to develop it. Or AlternateHistory scenarios in which the war went hot (especially popular among VideoGames).

So what actually happened? To avoid cluttering the article, this will get a separate entry: HistoryOfTheColdWar. However, broadly speaking, the history of conflict between the West and the Soviet Union can be divided into six sections:

* 1917-1930: Starts in RedOctober, in which the Bolsheviks seized power and waged the RussianCivilWar. League of Nations forces intervened and (indirectly, for the most part) assisted the various nationalist and White Russian forces in their attempts to seccede from or take over Bolshevik Russia respectively. The various anti-Bolshevik factions were too ill-co-ordinated to prevail, though a fair few countries (like Poland) managed to succesfully seccede despite the Red Army's efforts to crush them. Witnessed UrExample of the Red Scare - the United States being notably zealous in its crusade against socialism, at least until the later advent of McCarthyism. Fiction in this era tends to focus upon [[BombThrowingAnarchists Bomb Throwing Communists]], attempts to jumpstart a world revolution, and the chaos of the RussianCivilWar.
* 1931-1945: A period of reduced tensions between the USSR and the rest of the world as Europe and Imperial Japan's lurch to the right wing in the wake of the Great Depression led to some tentative contacts between the USSR and the non-communist and non-fascist powers. [[WorldWarTwo This blossomed into a full alliance after the USSR was brought into the wider war in '41]], though both sides still worked to expand their spy networks in each others' ranks. The fall of the Axis powers coupled with several high-profile scandals led to the conflict to quickly re-emerge in the post-war period. Expect fiction to portray the Soviets at best as heroic but not entirely trustworthy allies and conniving and treasonous enemies-in-all-but-name at worst.
* 1946-1962: High tension between the two sides, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis and some fierce Sino-Soviet border clashes. Fiction here has direct Soviet involvement in evil plots.
* 1962-1978: The period of détente. You are more likely to see a [[GeneralRipper rogue commander]] start up a FalseFlagOperation here without approval from the top. Witness the Film/JamesBond films ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'' and ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe''.
* 1978-1987: The "Second Cold War", with Communist China dabbling with Capitalism and kinda on the USA's side now. Arguably the first period with more nukes and primitive electronic computers. Direct RedScare again and the home of ''Series/{{Airwolf}}''
* 1987-1991: RonaldReagan [[GoKartingWithBowser goes go-karting with]] [[MikhailGorbachev Gorbachev]]. Glasnost and the end of the Cold War. Expect the RenegadeRussian to appear wanting to [[TheNewRussia avenge his side's "loss"]] or a paranoid GeneralRipper trying to MakeTheBearAngryAgain for personal reasons.

See also:
[[index]]
* UsefulNotes/BerlinWall
* CommieNazis
* FakeRussian
* UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes
* GloriousMotherRussia
* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp
* HotLine
* IronCurtain
* {{NATO}}
* ANuclearError
* PeaceThroughSuperiorFirepower
* UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets
* ReportingNames
* RussianReversal
* TheMoscowCriterion
* WarsawPact
* WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell
* WorldWarIII (NATO/Warsaw Pact version)
* UltimateDefenceOfTheRealm
* UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks
[[/index]]

Due to its sheer length, the ColdWar appeared by analogy in thousands of other works. See SpaceColdWar for examples. Also, the whole affair had so many confusing elements that {{Conspiracy Theorist}}s are ''still'' arguing about it - see EnforcedColdWar.
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!!Examples:

[[AC: {{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* The [[AlternateHistory historical]] event is touched on in ''Manga/AxisPowersHetalia'' with the avatars of Russia and America.
* ''FutureWar198X'', an obscure {{Toei}} production loosely based on ''Literature/TheThirdWorldWar''.
* ''LupinTheThirdTheWomanCalledFujikoMine ''is set roughly in the Cold War era and has an episode in which Fujiko gets caught up in a Cuban, American, and Russian aerial standoff.
* ''FromEroicaWithLove'' starts in this era, although it keeps going after the Cold War ends.

[[AC: Film - Animation]]
* ''The Passions of the Spies (Shpionskiye Strasti)'', a 1967 black and white Soviet animation, satirizes the whole spy war genre. More to say, it even dares to satirize the very Soviet propaganda, albeit in a friendly way.

[[AC: Film - Live Action]]
* ''DoctorStrangelove'' famously lampooned the Cold War as a childish dispute aggravated by sexual insecurity.
* Reversing the concept, ''Main/IceStationZebra'', while the attention was paid mostly to the U.S. side, the film showed the importance of delicate balance, which kept the war cold, over having the upper hand.
* Role reversal: ''K-19: The Widowmaker'', in which the crew of a Soviet submarine are the protagonists and American forces are the antagonists.
* ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the plot revolves around the Crisis being caused and then defused by mutants.
* ''OneTwoThree'' is set shortly before the BerlinWall was built (in fact, that's the reason why the movie became a victim of TooSoon).
* ''Film/TheDebt'', in the {{Flashback}}s.
* Film/ThirteenDays: About the the political infighting JohnFKennedy went through during the CubanMissileCrisis.
* The ''Resident'' tetralogy is a lenghty series of Soviet spy films about a Russian emigre spying for CIA in Soviet Union. He's eventually caught by Russian counter-intelligence and performs a FaceHeelTurn to become a KGB agent.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Most of the Literature/JamesBond novels.
* The works of Creator/TomClancy's ''Literature/JackRyan'' series up to ''The Cardinal of the Kremlin'' are set during the period, with a heavy focus on espionage and counter-espionage.
* JohnLeCarre.
* LenDeighton, especially the BernardSamsonSeries.
* Julian Semenov, for the Soviet side.
* ''[[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm A Colder War]]'' by CharlesStross involves a Cold War arms race where the "arms" are {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow.
* Ralph Peters' ''Literature/RedArmy'' covers the 1980s Cold War gone hot scenario from the Soviet perspective.

[[AC: LiveActionTV]]
* ''TwilightZone'' indirectly used the Cold War and the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union in both its original series and the 1985 revival. One -- "A Little Peace and Quiet," the debut story of the 1985 revival -- involves the use of newscats, depicting growing tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, much in the style of the first half of ''TheDayAfter'' to set up the climax (nuclear war actually breaking out between the U.S. and USSR).
* ''Series/TwentyFour'' has used both ex-Soviet weapons and ex-Soviet scientists.
* ''Series/{{Airwolf}}'' had the eponymous helicopter stolen by its inventor and taken to UsefulNotes/{{Libya}}, with the intent of passing it on to the USSR.
* ''Series/TheProfessionals'' regularly had brushes with the KGB.
* ''Series/MacGyver'', for the first three seasons.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'' has throughout the series many references to the Cold War, the former threat of the Soviet Union, and with particular emphasis on [[TheVietnamWar that nasty proxy war in Vietnam]].
* ''Series/TheColbertReport''. Stephen is doing his best to re-start the cold war in his Cold War Update segments.
* In ''Series/ItTakesAThief1968'', Al Mundy smuggles something or someone across the Iron Curtain practically OnceAnEpisode.
* Soviet series ''TASS is authorized to announce...'' features good KGB guys and corrupt CIA agents struggling over a coup d'etait plot in some fictional Black Africa state.
* The FX show ''Series/TheAmericans'' takes place in the early eighties and focuses on two Russian KGB deep undercover agents in America.
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Cold War"]].

[[AC: ProfessionalWrestling]]
* Playing off Cold War tensions, many promoters would create Russian heels by taking ordinary Americans, giving them a Russian (or other USSR-state) accent and having him "promise" to destroy the lead pro-American face in the promotion he was working in. Many of the best known came well after the Cuban Missle Crisis, but still, villians like Ivan Koloff (1970s) Wrestling/NikitaKoloff (mid-1980s, until his face turn) and Nikolai Volkoff (mid- to late-1980s World Wrestlng Federation) were very effective in building heat and drawing audiences wanting their hero of the time to destroy said villian.

[[AC: TabletopGames]]
* ''TwilightStruggle''.

[[AC: {{Theater}}]]
* One example of a role-reversal of the usual "West good, East bad" scenario is from the stage-musical ''Theatre/{{Chess}}'', in which both the American and the Soviet intelligence agencies are shown to be cruelly manipulative, differing mainly in style -- the Russian KGB agent bombastic and overbearing, the American CIA plant slick and cunning -- rather than substance.
* ''TheCrucible'' by Arthur Miller (himself a communist) is a [[DevilInPlainSight thinly veiled criticism]] of Mc Carthyism.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Battlezone|1998}}'' has the Cold War go hot - [-IN SPACE-]! The Soviet Union and United States fight over [[UnObtanium Bio Metal]] on various planets in the solar system right after the [[AlternateHistory first lunar landing]] - which were basically faked, shown in the intro to the first level [[TheMasquerade where right behind Apollo 11 is an entire moon base]], which can be used to make fantastic hover tanks and weapons. The events of the game are totally covered up until ''Battlezone II'' (set in the late '90s)
* The first two ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' games were made when the Cold War was around and the Soviet Union still existed, while the third is set in the 1964 and starred an American agent operating in Soviet Union, and effectively was a deconstruction of the nature of the Cold War. ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker Peace Walker]]'' is set in 1974, where the Cold War superpowers are jockeying for influence in Central America.
* ''AceCombat 5'' was basically a Cold War gone hot situation. Osea (the in-game equivalent of the US) and Yuktobania (USSR), though like its [[WorldWarII prequel]] Zero, it started to take a bit of a twist towards the weird near the end.
* the ''OperationFlashpoint'' series
* [[http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/east-vs-west-a-hearts-of-iron-game East vs. West]], a greatly anticipated game from Paradox, begins in 1946 and continues through till 1991.
* [[http://www.mobygames.com/game/third-courier The Third Courier]], a modern spy game set in Berlin, had the misfortune to be released in 1989, as the BerlinWall was falling.
* ''WorldInConflict'' An RTT (Real Time Tactical) game set in 1989. Instead of the Berlin Wall falling, the USSR decides to go all in an attempt to destabilize NATO as means of keeping itself afloat. The game also has an expansion called Soviet Assault which shows the Russian side of the conflict starting from day one to right before the final battle for Seattle.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' first of the series to be set in the Cold War.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps2'': Features two cold wars, the historical one in the 1980s, and a fictional one between the US and China.
* ''VideoGame/WargameEuropeanEscalation'': Another RTS game. Set between 1975 - 1985, the Cold War doesn't exactly go hot immediately in this one. In the first campaign, the conflict is entirely between East Germany vs. West Germany; it erupted due to a political incident involving a soldier crossing the Wall and the East German guards being way too overzealous in trying to catch him. Subsequent campaigns explore a Warsaw Pact rebellion with a Soviet crackdown, Able Archer '83 turning hot, and a Spetsnaz colonel's plans for revenge after the war spilling out from Able Archer turned nuclear.
* ''VideoGame/MissileCommand'', which was not only set in the Cold War, but ''made'' during it. It hit so close to home, programmer Dave Theurer actually had nightmares about nuclear war while making this game.
* A very great many scenarios from the ''VideoGame/SteelPanthers'' series deal with either the numerous "brushfire wars" between clients of the two sides, or with hypothetical conflicts where the war [[WorldWarThree turns hot]].
* ''CodenamePanzers'' - ''Cold War'': when the a Soviet fighter collided with U.S. cargo plane, which is enough to provoke the USSR to attack West Germany, instigating a war between the USSR and NATO.
* ''VideoGame/GraviteamTactics'': the campaigns ''Operation Hooper'' and ''Shield of the Prophet'' are set within 1970s and 1980s proxy conflicts of the Cold War in Afghanistan and Angola. The ''Zhalanashkol 1969'' campaign is set during the western portion of the 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict.
* ''VideoGame/TheBureauXCOMDeclassified'' is set in the Midwest in 1962, with XCOM meant as an early response unit against ''communist'' invasion rather than aliens.
* In VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}}, the player takes command of a multinational paramilitary organization whose objective is to thwart an Main/AlienInvasion. The twist: it's 1979, and the tension is high.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Westward}}'' is set in an AlternateHistory where the ColdWar never ended. Initially this is just an interesting part of the story's background, but eventually the implications become quite important to the plot, and personally to some of the characters.
** The continuation of the ColdWar may have also led to the quicker development in space travel technology, with manned trips to Mars in the 1970s and the construction of a starship with a [[FasterThanLightTravel Faster-Than-Light drive]] (albeit one that's a BlackBox) by the end of the 20th century.
* In ''Webcomic/JetDream'', Cold War politics are portrayed relatively realistically, but parodied in the "teen oriented" sister title ''It's Cookie!'' Those stories depict an East-West "Cool War" to win over the world's teens in a circa-1970 world where the watchword is "Fem Is In!" The "Cool War" is mostly fought as a battle between the West's flawless-but-expensive GenderBender process and the East's quick-and-dirty EasySexChange procedures.
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* The DoctorWho episode [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Cold War"]].

* Playing off Cold War tensions, many promoters would create Russian heels by taking ordinary Americans, giving them a Russian (or other USSR-state) accent and having him "promise" to destroy the lead pro-American face in the promotion he was working in. Many of the best known came well after the Cuban Missle Crisis, but still, villians like Ivan Koloff (1970s) Nikita Koloff (mid-1980s, until his face turn) and Nikolai Volkoff (mid- to late-1980s World Wrestlng Federation) were very effective in building heat and drawing audiences wanting their hero of the time to destroy said villian.

* ''VideoGame/GraviteamTactics'': the campaigns ''Operation Hooper'' and ''Shield of the Prophet'' are set within 1970s and 1980s proxy conflicts of the Cold War in Afghanistan and Angola. The ''Zhalanashkol'' campaign is set during the western portion of the 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict.

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and dictatorships[[hottip:*: This is arguably the origin of the term 'The West', as Western Europe and its allies were all anti-communist dictatorships (like Franco's Spain) and democracies (like the Fourth French Republic). Since the war's end the term has come to encompass all European-type societies, not just non-communist ones. ]] (led by NATO) and state communism (led by the [[SovietUnion USSR]] and the Warsaw Pact a.k.a the "eastern bloc", with China kind of aligned with them 'til the Sino-Soviet split of '60[[hottip:*: Whereupon, at a few points, World War Three looked more likely to start as a Sino-Soviet conflict]]). The nature of the 'war' means it didn't have a beginning or end as such, but Churchill's "IronCurtain" speech of 1946 to the Malta meeting of 1990 are popular dates. RedOctober is the earliest start-date, the latest end-date being 25/12/1991, when Mikhail Gorbechev resigned and the [=USSR=] was officially dissolved. There was no direct fighting between the two superpowers[[hottip:*: Excepting the whole 'Korean War' thing, wherein the vast majority of North Korea's troops and pilots were actually Chinese and Soviet 'volunteers'.]] although many indirect conflicts flared up, with one or both sides backed by one or both sides ([[Main/TheKoreanWar Korea]], [[Main/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]], The Iran-Iraq War, The Angolan Bush War, Afghanistan, etc).

* UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithRockets

* UsefulNotes/MnogoNukes

* RedsWithRockets

* WorldWarIII

* YanksWithTanks

* The first two ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' games used ex-Soviet stuff, while the third was set in the 60s and starred an American agent in Soviet Russia, and effectively was a deconstruction of the nature of the Cold War.

* ''MetalGearSolid3'' is set during the cold war where Naked Snake is sent to the jungles of Russia, to steal the Philosophers legacy, and destroy a Metal Gear.

Standard plot in western media involves U.S. as goodies, USSR as baddies (of course, it is [[InSovietRussia vice versa in Russian media]]). You could also have GeneralRipper come in and accuse our heroes of [[Main/MistakenForSpies being Commie spies]]; or a third party trying to spark the war between two superpowers. May or may not involve an ArchaeologicalArmsRace or two for ([[StupidJetpackHitler Nazi]]) technology.

* InSovietRussiaTropeMocksYou

* WhyWereBummedCommunismFell

* Ralph Peters' ''Literature/RedArmy'' covers the 1980s WorldWarIII scenario from the Soviet perspective.

* ''VideoGame/GraviteamTactics'': the campaigns ''Operation Hooper'' and ''Shield of the Prophet'' are set within the '70s and '80s proxy conflicts of the Cold War in Afghanistan and Angola.