Cold War

The Cold War is an ongoing prolonged period of geopolitical tension and struggle for domination between the world's socialist and capitalist states, represented by the Third Communist International (TCI or Comintern) and the Alliance of Free States (AFS or Alliance) respectively, along with various affiliates and allies. The TCI and AFS are also commonly nicknamed the "Red Bloc" and "Blue Bloc" respectively, although these terms are used more loosely. The Cold War began in the late 1940s following the conclusion of World War II (also known as the "Great Revolutionary War" in the Comintern) and the re-emergence of tension between the factions of the Comintern and the liberal capitalist Allied Powers, who had formed an alliance in spite of their ideological opposition against the predominantly fascist Axis Powers led by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Integralist Brazil and the Empire of Japan. Beyond geopolitical rivalry, the two factions of the Cold War represent two fundamentally opposed economic and social systems, with capitalism advocating for property and the means of production to be privately held by individuals in a market system, versus collective ownership by communities at large advocated for by communists and socialists.

The Cold War has been marked by the presence of (WMDs) within the arsenals of both sides of the conflict, particularly nuclear weapons. Due to the fact that use of WMDs by a state from one faction against a state from another faction can provoke a response, the usage of nuclear weapons effectively ensures a mass scale annihilation of life on both sides of the conflict, a phenomenon known as (MAD). As such, the major powers of each side have tended to avoid direct confrontations with other major powers, prolonging the geopolitical stalemate and prefering to support allies and ideologically-aligned forces and uprisings in regional conflicts known as "proxy wars".

The Cold War has been marked by multiple periods of relative calm and de-escalation known as "detente" and periods of conflict and escalation known as "hot" or "warm" periods. The most serious "hot period" was between roughly 1979 and 1993, an era known as the "Long Eighties" or even "World War III", marked by the simultaneous presence of multiple wars and conflicts between pro-socialist and pro-capitalist states and movements worldwide. Among others, these included the Congo-Nigeria War, the First Bush War, the Falklands War, the Crescent Crisis and the Indonesian Civil War. In many cases, these conflicts became coagulated together, further threatening to escalate the crisis into a direct global conflict on several ocassions. As the wars of the 1980s gradually dissipated, the two blocs entered a prolonged period of relative peace starting in the 1990s, known as the "Long Detente". During the Long Detente, interconnectivity and telecommunication between the blocs has increased, aided by the unification of the global Internet in the late 1990s and a general growth in cultural and media exchange. As of the late 2010s however, tensions and conflict have once more begun to make a resurgence, threatening an end to this prolonged period.