Cold War

The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s. Throughout the period, the rivalry between the two superpowers was played out in multiple arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and espionage; military, industrial, and technological developments, including the space race; costly defense spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms race; and many proxy wars.

The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s following Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's summit conferences with United States President Ronald Reagan, as well as Gorbachev's launching of reform programs: perestroika and glasnost. The Soviet Union consequently ceded power over Eastern Europe and was dissolved in 1991.

Cold War in A World of Difference
The Cold War was the impetus for the respective US and Soviet space missions to Minerva. Consequently, the Skarmer-Omalo War became essentially a proxy war, as the Soviets supported the Skarmer domain, and the US supported the Omalo.

Cold War in "Black Tulip"
The Cold War provided a back drop for the Soviet war in Afghanistan, as the Soviet Union attempted to keep Afghanistan within its sphere of influence.

Cold War in The Gladiator
In one alternate infiltrated by Crosstime Traffic, the Soviet Union and its allies won the Cold War. The world fell under the rule of communism.