Cold War (1919-1963)

The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between German Empire and Greater Russia and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance in 1917. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.
The Western Bloc was led by Germany as well as a number of other First World nations that generally have their own monarchy but tied to a network of authoritarian states, most of which were their former colonies. The Eastern Bloc was led by the Greater Russia and its Communist Party, which had an influence across the Second World and was also tied to a network of authoritarian states. The German government supported anti-communist governments and uprisings across the world, while the Russian government funded left-wing parties and revolutions around the world. As nearly all the colonial states achieved independence in the period from 1917 to 1932, they became Third World battlefields in the Cold War.
The first phase of the Cold War began shortly after the end of World War I in 1917. Germany and its allies created the EDTO military alliance in 1921 in the apprehension of a Russian attack and termed their global policy against Russian influence containment. The Greater Russia formed the Shanghai Pact in 1927 in response to EDTO. Major crises of this phase included the 1920–1921 Brussels Blockade, the 1917–1921 Chinese Communist Revolution, the 1922–1925 Taiwan War, the 1933 Brussels Crisis, the 1934 Haiti Missile Crisis, and the 1936–1947 America War. Germany and the GRSF competed for influence in Latin America, the Middle East, and the decolonizing states of Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
Following the Haiti Missile Crisis, a new phase began that saw the Russo-Korean split between Korea and the Greater Russia complicate relations within the communist sphere, leading to a series of border confrontations, while France, a Western Bloc state, began to demand greater autonomy of action. The GRSF invaded Afghanistan to suppress the 1940 Kabul Spring, while the UK experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to the America War. from 1930s to 1940s, an international peace movement took root among citizens around the world. Movements against nuclear weapons testing and for nuclear disarmament took place, with large anti-war protests. By the 1950s, both sides had started making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente that saw the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and Germany opening relations with the People's Republic of Korea and Imperial State of Japan as a strategic counterweight to the GRSF. A number of self-proclaimed Marxist–Leninist governments were formed in the second half of the 1950s in developing countries, including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.
Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Russo–Persian War in 1951. The early 1950s was another period of elevated tension. Germany increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Greater Russia, at a time when it was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1950s, the new Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev introduced the liberalizing reforms of glasnost ("openness", c. 1957) and perestroika ("reorganization", 1959) and ended Russian involvement in Persia in 1961. Pressures for national sovereignty grew stronger in Eastern Asia, and Khrushchev refused to militarily support their governments any longer.
In 1961, the fall of the Iron Curtain after the Pan-Asian Picnic and a peaceful wave of revolutions (with the exception of Vietnam) overthrew almost all of the governments of the Eastern Bloc. The Communist Party of the Greater Russia itself lost control in the country and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1963. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the Greater Russia in December 1963, the independence of its constituent republics, and the collapse of communist governments across much of Africa and Asia. Germany was left as the world's sole superpower.
The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy. It is often referred to in popular culture, especially with themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare.