History UsefulNotes / ColdWar

* ''Series/MacGyver'', for the first three seasons.

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and their client 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. 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).

* Herman Van Veen (creator of ''WesternAnimation/AlfredJKwak'') made a 1983 song called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTClBuPesxo De bom valt nooit]]" (The bomb never drops), referring to a potential bombing from the Soviet Union.

* 1987-1991: UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan [[GoKartingWithBowser goes go-karting with]] [[UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev Gorbachev]]. In an attempt to rejuvenate European communism, Gorbachev institutes greater public and market freedoms with policies influenced by Western capitalism. These efforts, combined with Gorbachev's uncannily czarist Western-based public image, instead fuel increased dissent in the Soviet bloc, resulting in countless countries' populations revolting, ousting the old communist governments, and transitioning to capitalist ones, causing the Soviet Union to rapidly shrink more and more. China also institutes gradually increasing capitalist-inspired policies, doing away with the last vestiges of the Maoist old guard in the process, but maintains control as an authoritarian government via brutally massacring pro-democracy protesters in Tienanmen Square. Expect the RenegadeRussian to appear wanting to [[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia avenge his side's "loss"]] or a paranoid GeneralRipper trying to MakeTheBearAngryAgain for personal reasons.

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and their client 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. 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 whole 'Korean War' thing, 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).

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

Some historians argue that while the conflict between the US and USSR ended in 1991, the Cold War as a whole has yet to truly end, with lingering tensions between the US and the world's remaining communist countries continuing to pop up in the public consciousness, and nuclear weaponry remaining a strong point of concern. In TheNewTens in particular, a number of analysts postulated that America was particularly caught up in a sort of neo-Cold War with UsefulNotes/NorthKorea, the only communist nation to maintain a Soviet-esque level of aggression towards the United States, complete with constant showcases of their nuclear firepower for the sake of intimidation.

* Herman Van Veen (creator of ''WesternAnimation/AlfredJKwak'') made a 1984 song called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTClBuPesxo De bom valt nooit]]" (The bomb never drops), referring to a potential bombing from the Soviet Union.

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

* ''Film/OneTwoThree'' is set shortly before the UsefulNotes/BerlinWall was built (in fact, that's the reason why the movie became a victim of TooSoon).

* Early Creator/MarvelComics, published in the early 60's, tended to include a lot of Cold War-related plots. Comicbook/IronMan in particular fought a lot of Communist agents of one sort or another -- Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, even the ComicBook/BlackWidow first appeared as a Soviet spy before [[HeelFaceTurn defecting to the U.S.]], and of course Tony's origin has him escaping from the North Vietnamese. Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk owes his origin to a Soviet spy, Igor Drenkhov, who deliberately allowed the gamma bomb to detonate while Bruce was in the target area. And [[Comicbook/FantasticFour Reed Richards]] launched his rocket to beat the Soviets in UsefulNotes/TheSpaceRace. Years later in TheEighties, the U.S.S.R. would have its own super team, the Soviet Super-Soldiers. Due to ComicBookTime, all of these Iron Curtain characters have been subject to retcons in the last couple of decades, as the Cold War recedes further and further into the past.

Some historians argue that while the conflict between the US and USSR ended in 1991, the Cold War as a whole has yet to truly end, with lingering tensions between the US and the world's remaining communist countries continuing to pop up in the public consciousness, and nuclear weaponry remaining a strong point of concern. In TheNewTens in particular, a number of analysts have postulated that America is particularly caught up in a sort of neo-Cold War with UsefulNotes/NorthKorea, the only communist nation to maintain a Soviet-esque level of aggression towards the United States, complete with constant showcases of their nuclear firepower for the sake of intimidation.

* ''VideoGame/YouAreEmpty'' takes place during the Cold War in an alternate universe where the Soviets have taken over the USA.

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and their client 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. Likewise, the French Fifth Republic under De Gaulle exited NATO and conducted its own independent policy with the Soviet Union.[[/note]](led by 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 whole 'Korean War' thing, 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/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' first of the series to be set in the Cold War.

* 1987-1991: UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan [[GoKartingWithBowser goes go-karting with]] [[UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev Gorbachev]]. In an attempt to rejuvenate European communism, Gorbachev institutes greater public and market freedoms with policies influenced by Western capitalism. These efforts, combined with Gorbachev's uncannily czarist Western-based public image, instead fuel increased dissent in the Soviet bloc, resulting in countless countries' populations revolting, ousting the old communist governments, and transitioning to capitalist ones, causing the Soviet Union to rapidly shrink more and more. China also institutes gradually increasing capitalist-inspired policies, doing away with the last vestiges of the Maoist old guard in the process, but maintains control as an authoritarian government via brutally massacring pro-democracy supporters in Tienanmen Square. Expect the RenegadeRussian to appear wanting to [[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia avenge his side's "loss"]] or a paranoid GeneralRipper trying to MakeTheBearAngryAgain for personal reasons.
* 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 in 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.

* 1987-1991: UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan [[GoKartingWithBowser goes go-karting with]] [[UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev Gorbachev]]. Glasnost and the end of the Cold War to the tune of ever-increasing PRC experimentation with capitalism. Expect the RenegadeRussian to appear wanting to [[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia avenge his side's "loss"]] or a paranoid GeneralRipper trying to MakeTheBearAngryAgain for personal reasons.
* 1991: The Soviet Union self-destructs in TheGreatPoliticsMessUp, with UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia taking on its UN Security Council seat and most of its debt.

* ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the plot revolves around the Crisis being caused and then defused by mutants.

* 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 HeelFaceTurn to become a KGB agent.
* ''Film/LordOfWar'' starts in this era. Later, Yuri subverted WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell; he's positively thrilled that the Soviet Union collapsed, because it's great for his business, especially as he's got an uncle who's ex-Soviet Army with warehouses just full of arms...

* The much earlier film ''Film/FailSafe'' is a more bleakly realistic version of what a computer-caused [[ANuclearError Nuclear Error]] could lead to. The film focuses on the American President and his Soviet counterpart desperately trying to prevent WorldWarIII.
* In ''Film/PickupOnSouthStreet'', the plot [[MacGuffin revolves around]] a group of commies trying to get hold of a microfilm with top-secret US government information.
* ''Film/TheReturnOfGodzilla'' both takes place in, and was made during, the Cold War; in fact, Godzilla's appearance in the film even threatens to turn the Cold War into a third World War in the context of the story.
* ''Film/TheManFromUNCLE'' is set during UsefulNotes/TheSixties, and has a CIA agent and KGB agent having to work together.
* ''Film/BridgeOfSpies'' tells the true story of how American lawyer James Donovan defended the Soviet spy Rudolph Abel at trial and later negotiated a PrisonerExchange, sending him back to the USSR in exchange for a captured US pilot.
* ''Film/TheShapeOfWater'' takes place in an American government research facility where [[FishPeople a fish-man, nicknamed "the Asset,"]] is held and studied is infiltrated by a Soviet spy [[spoiler: who's posing as an American scientist and [[ItCanThink after seeing him interact with the mute cleaning lady, decides to sabotage his mission to euthanize and compromise the "Asset's" corpse.]]]]

* ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone'' indirectly used the Cold War and the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union in both its [[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 original series]] and the [[Series/TheTwilightZone1985 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 ''Film/TheDayAfter'' to set up the climax (nuclear war actually breaking out between the U.S. and USSR).

* ''Series/TheProfessionals'' regularly had brushes with the KGB.

* ''Series/{{JAG}}'' has throughout the series many references to the Cold War, the former threat of the Soviet Union, and with particular emphasis on [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar that nasty proxy war in Vietnam]].

* In ''Series/ItTakesAThief1968'', Al Mundy smuggles something or someone across the Iron Curtain practically OncePerEpisode.
* Soviet series ''TASS is authorized to announce...'' features good KGB guys and corrupt CIA agents struggling over a coup d'etat 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"]].
** The original series episode "Warriors of the Deep" is set in the future, when there is a cold war going on between two "power blocs," but it's not clear whether it's a continuation of the (at the time) [[TheEighties present]] Cold War or a later, unrelated one.
* The Klingons in the original ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'' existed mostly for parables about the Cold War. When the Cold War ended in real life, ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'' ended the cold war between the Federation and the Klingons.
** One time travel episode of the original series, "Assignment: Earth," involves the ''Enterprise'' crew accidentally getting caught up in a plan by aliens to prevent a nuclear war between the superpowers.
** "The Omega Glory" has the crew discover a world whose history exactly parallels Earth's, except that their Cold War ended in nuclear annihilation.

* 1931-1945: TheGreatDepression leads to a period of reduced tensions between the USSR and the rest of the world as Imperial Japan's lurch to the right-wing and the rise of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany led liberals and centrists and the non-communist left in USA, UK, and France to ascendancy in order to check both Fascism and Communism. Communist International (Comintern) mounted a Popular Front in the mid-thirties and tried to intervene in the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar on behalf of Republican Spain. Attempts at a common alliance fell in the wake of the Munich Crisis, leading instead to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, followed by the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. A grand anti-fascist alliance was formed when the Nazis invaded the USSR, followed by Imperial Japan's attack on America, though both sides still worked to expand their spy networks in each others' ranks. The fall of the Axis powers led to the conflict quickly re-emerging in the post-war period. Expect Anglo-American 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 or alternatively downplay and ignore their contributions to the war effort.

* 1931-1945: TheGreatDepression leads to a period of reduced tensions between the USSR and the rest of the world as Imperial Japan's lurch to the right-wing and the rise of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, led liberals and centrists and the non-communist left in USA, UK, and France to ascendancy in order to check both Fascism and Communism. Communist International (Comintern) mounted a Popular Front in the middle-of-the-thirties and tried to intervene in the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar on behalf of Republican Spain. Attempts at a common alliance fell in the wake of the Munich Crisis, leading instead to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, followed by the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. A grand anti-fascist alliance was formed when the Nazis invaded the USSR, followed by Imperial Japan's attack on America, though both sides still worked to expand their spy networks in each others' ranks. The fall of the Axis powers led to the conflict quickly re-emerging in the post-war period. Expect Anglo-American 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 or alternatively downplay and ignore their contributions to the war effort.

* 1917-1930: Starts in UsefulNotes/RedOctober, in which the Bolsheviks seized power, unilaterally pulled out of the ongoing UsefulNotes/WorldWarI to the chagrin and disbelief of world powers, speaking the Russian Civil War between the Whites and the Reds. League of Nations forces intervened and (indirectly, for the most part) assisted the various nationalist and White Russian forces in their attempts to secede from or take over Bolshevik Russia respectively. The various anti-Bolshevik factions were too ill-coordinated to prevail, though a fair few countries (like Poland) managed to successfully secede when the Red Army tried to march to Germany through Poland to aid the Bavarian Revolution (which was violently crushed). Success of the October Revolution leads to fears of a Revolutionary wave, leading to the UrExample of the RedScare - the United States being notably zealous in its crusade against socialism, which in turn led to the rise of UsefulNotes/FascistItaly and other movements who became the militant counter-revolution. Fiction in this era tends to focus upon [[BombThrowingAnarchists Bomb Throwing Communists]], attempts to jumpstart a world revolution, and the chaos of the Russian Civil War.

The period of high tension and LensmanArmsRace between the Western democracies and their client 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. Likewise, the French Fifth Republic under De Gaulle exited NATO and conducted its own independent policy with the Soviet Union.[[/note]](led by 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 conflict between the two nuclear superpowers.[[note]]Excepting the whole 'Korean War' thing, 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).

* * ''Film/TheShapeOfWater'' takes place in an American government research facility where [[FishPeople a fish-man, nicknamed "the Asset,"]] is held and studied is infiltrated by a Soviet spy [[spoiler: who's posing as an American scientist and [[ItCanThink after seeing him interact with the mute cleaning lady, decides to sabotage his mission to euthanize and compromise the "Asset's" corpse.]]]]

** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps2'': Features two cold wars, the historical one in the 1980s, and a fictional one between the US and China.

* 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.

* Film/ThirteenDays: About the the political infighting UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy went through during the UsefulNotes/CubanMissileCrisis.

* ''VideoGame/PhantomDoctrine'' is a espionage themed turn-based strategy title set during the 1980s. Naturally the CIA and KGB (along with various other shadowy organisations) are involved.