Cold War (1943-1987)

The Cold War (1943-1987) was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition existing after World War II (1939-1941), primarily between Nazi Germany and its satellite states, and Japan and its allies. Although the primary participants military forces never officially clashed directly, they expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, expensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, a nuclear arms race, and technology competitions such as the Space Race. Despite being allies against the Allied powers in World War II and having the most powerful military forces among peer nations, Germany and Japan disagreed about the configuration of the post-war world while occupying most of North America, Asia, and Europe.
Nazi Germany was renamed the Third Reich of Greater Germany, and with all the nations it occupied or were loyal to Germany were joined the Western Bloc. The Soviet Union was made into a fascist police state, modeled after Germany. Nations such as France, England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, and Portugal became satellite states. Germany made an alliance with the other members of the Western Bloc, the Paris Pact (1951-1987). Japan and it’s allies in established containment of fascism as a defensive policy, establishing alliances such as PATO. 
The Cold War featured periods of relative calm and of international high tensions- the Moscow Blockade (1944-1945), the American War (1946-1949), the Moscow Crisis of 1957, the Philippines War (1951-1971), the Hawaii Missile Crisis (1958), the Pakistan War (1975-1985), and the 1979 German nuclear false alarm incident (1979). Both sides sought détente to relieve political tensions and direct military attack, which would devastate the world with nuclear weapons.
In the 1980s, Japan increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures against Germany, which had already suffered severe economic stagnation. Germany introduced liberal reforms in the 1980s, as the Cold War began to end. The Cold War ended as the Third Reich collapsed in 1987, leaving Japan as the dominant military power, and the newly created German Federation possessing much of the Third Reich’s nuclear arsenal. The Cold War and its events have had a significant impact on the world today, and it is commonly referred to in popular culture.