History UsefulNotes / ColdWar

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and their allies[[note]]This is arguably the origin of the term "The West," as Western Europe and its allies were either anti-communist dictatorships (like Franco's Spain) or 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. Likewise, the French Fifth Republic under De Gaulle exited NATO and conducted its own independent policy with the Soviet Union.[[/note]](led by the United States and UsefulNotes/{{NATO}}) and state communism (led by the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn USSR]], the Warsaw Pact a.k.a the "eastern bloc", with China kind of aligned with them till 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]]) and other emerging left-wing and communist movements. The nature of the "war" means it didn't have a beginning or end as such, but Churchill's "UsefulNotes/IronCurtain" speech of 1946 to the Malta meeting of 1990 are popular dates. UsefulNotes/RedOctober is the earliest start-date, the latest end-date being Christmas Day 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned and the [=USSR=] was officially dissolved. Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} specifically dates the timespan of the Cold War from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine Truman Doctrine]]'s announcement on March 12, 1947 to the finalization of the USSR's dissolution on December 26, 1991, the day after Gorbachev's resignation. There was never a direct military conflict between the two nuclear superpowers.[[note]]Excepting the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar, wherein the vast majority of North Korea's troops and pilots were actually PRC and Soviet "volunteers," respectively.[[/note]] Most of the fighting came as a result of {{Proxy War}}s, with one or both sides backed by one or both superpowers ([[UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar Korea]], [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]], The UsefulNotes/IranIraqWar, The Angolan Bush War, Afghanistan, etc).

** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' is set during yet another fictional one, this time with fictitious factions that are roughly analogous to NATO and the Soviet Union, but with a few major changes (only about half of Europe is part of the "Winslow Accord", everyone east of Poland and the Czech Republic having gone over to the "Common Defense Pact", though in return the Accord also has China and several Middle Eastern members).

* ''VideoGame/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/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' first of the series to be set in the Cold War with missions that covering many historical events such as Bay of Pigs Invasion and UsefulNotes/VietnamWar as well as featuring real life figures such as Fidel Castro and John F. Kennedy.
** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII'': Features two cold wars, the historical one in the 1980s, and a fictional one between the US and China.

* 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]].

* 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.

* ''VideoGame/SniperElite'' is nominally set during the last days of UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo, but most of your missions involve preventing critical intelligence from falling into Soviet hands or supporting anti-Soviet insurgents, making the game less about the end of the Second World War and more about the start of the Cold War.

[[folder: General ]]

* Obviously, all works about UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar, UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, and the UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan are about the Cold War by default.
* Essentially all works set in TheFifties, TheSixties, TheSeventies, and TheEighties will take place during the Cold War by default.

[[/folder]]

* Christmas Day, 1991: TheGreatPoliticsMessUp. Having lost literally all of its territory[[note]]and we ''do'' mean "literally"; at this point the Soviet Union existed solely within the hallways of the Kremlin, with even Russia having jumped ship[[/note]], the Soviet Union officially dissolves with Gorbachev's resignation as premier. UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia, led first by Boris Yeltsin and then by on-again off-again Vladimir Putin, takes on the Soviet Union's UN Security Council seat and most of its debt.

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and their allies[[note]]This is arguably the origin of the term "The West," as Western Europe and its allies were either anti-communist dictatorships (like Franco's Spain) or 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. Likewise, the French Fifth Republic under De Gaulle exited NATO and conducted its own independent policy with the Soviet Union.[[/note]](led by the United States and UsefulNotes/{{NATO}}) and state communism (led by the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn USSR]], the Warsaw Pact a.k.a the "eastern bloc", with China kind of aligned with them till 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]]) and other emerging left-wing and communist movements. The nature of the "war" means it didn't have a beginning or end as such, but Churchill's "UsefulNotes/IronCurtain" speech of 1946 to the Malta meeting of 1990 are popular dates. UsefulNotes/RedOctober is the earliest start-date, the latest end-date being Christmas Day 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned and the [=USSR=] was officially dissolved. Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} specifically dates the timespan of the Cold War from the Truman Doctrine's announcement on March 12, 1947 to December 26, 1991, the day after Gorbachev's resignation (as that was when the USSR's dissolution was finalized). There was never a direct military conflict between the two nuclear superpowers.[[note]]Excepting the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar, wherein the vast majority of North Korea's troops and pilots were actually PRC and Soviet "volunteers," respectively.[[/note]] Most of the fighting came as a result of {{Proxy War}}s, with one or both sides backed by one or both superpowers ([[UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar Korea]], [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]], The UsefulNotes/IranIraqWar, The Angolan Bush War, Afghanistan, etc).

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and their allies[[note]]This is arguably the origin of the term "The West," as Western Europe and its allies were either anti-communist dictatorships (like Franco's Spain) or 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. Likewise, the French Fifth Republic under De Gaulle exited NATO and conducted its own independent policy with the Soviet Union.[[/note]](led by the United States and UsefulNotes/{{NATO}}) and state communism (led by the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn USSR]], the Warsaw Pact a.k.a the "eastern bloc", with China kind of aligned with them till 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]]) and other emerging left-wing and communist movements. The nature of the "war" means it didn't have a beginning or end as such, but Churchill's "UsefulNotes/IronCurtain" speech of 1946 to the Malta meeting of 1990 are popular dates. UsefulNotes/RedOctober is the earliest start-date, the latest end-date being Christmas Day 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned and the [=USSR=] was officially dissolved. There was never a direct military conflict between the two nuclear superpowers.[[note]]Excepting the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar, wherein the vast majority of North Korea's troops and pilots were actually PRC and Soviet "volunteers," respectively.[[/note]] Most of the fighting came as a result of {{Proxy War}}s, with one or both sides backed by one or both superpowers ([[UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar Korea]], [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]], The UsefulNotes/IranIraqWar, The Angolan Bush War, Afghanistan, etc).

* The [[AlternateHistory historical]] event is touched on in ''Manga/AxisPowersHetalia'' with the avatars of Russia and America.