Query: Armed conflicts over resources may become a reality, and have the potential to escalate into nuclear war.

Relevant passages:
Vietnam War <=SEP=> The Vietnam War ( Chiến tranh Việt Nam ) , also known as the Second Indochina War , and known in Vietnam as Resistance War Against America ( Kháng chiến chống Mỹ ) or simply the American War , was a war that occurred in Vietnam , Laos , and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975 . It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam . The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union , China and other communist allies and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States , South Korea , Australia , Thailand and other anti-communist allies . The war is therefore considered a Cold War-era proxy war .   The Viet Cong ( also known as the National Liberation Front , or NLF ) , a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North , fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region , while the People 's Army of Vietnam , also known as the North Vietnamese Army ( NVA ) , engaged in more conventional warfare , at times committing large units to battle . As the war continued , the military actions of the Viet Cong decreased as the role and engagement of the NVA grew . U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations , involving ground forces , artillery , and airstrikes . In the course of the war , the U.S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam .   The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam . They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States . The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam . This was part of the domino theory of a wider containment policy , with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism worldwide .   Beginning in 1950 , American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina.The Military Assistance Advisory Group , Indochina ( with an authorized strength of 128 men ) was set up in September 1950 with a mission to oversee the use and distribution of US military equipment by the French and their allies . U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s , with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962 . U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident , in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft , which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution , which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence . Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965 . Operations crossed international borders : bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968 , the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive . The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government , but became the turning point in the war , as it persuaded a large segment of the U.S. population that its government 's claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam .   Gradual withdrawal of U.S. ground forces began as part of `` Vietnamization '' , which aimed to end American involvement in the war while transferring the task of fighting the communists to the South Vietnamese themselves . Despite the Paris Peace Accord , which was signed by all parties in January 1973 , the fighting continued . In the U.S. and the Western world , a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture . The war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs , and altered North -- South relations .   Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 . The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war , and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year . The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities ( see Vietnam War casualties ) . Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 to 3.8 million . Some 240,000 -- 300,000 Cambodians , 20,000 -- 62,000 Laotians , and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict , and a further 1,626 remain missing in action .

United Nations in popular culture <=SEP=> Popular culture references to the United Nations have been made in several media , including film , books , video games , and others . In many instances , the United Nations ( or a fictional agency thereof ) will figure in a storyline . In the case of science fiction , for example , the humans are united under one government that is descended directly from the UN .

Violence <=SEP=> Violence is defined by the World Health Organization as `` the intentional use of physical force or power , threatened or actual , against oneself , another person , or against a group or community , which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury , death , psychological harm , maldevelopment , or deprivation '' , although the group acknowledges that the inclusion of `` the use of power '' in its definition expands on the conventional understanding of the word . This definition involves intentionality with the committing of the act itself , irrespective of the outcome it produces . However , generally , anything that is excited in an injurious or damaging way may be described as violent even if not meant to be violence ( by a person and against a person ) .   Globally , violence resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.28 million people in 2013 up from 1.13 million in 1990 . Of the deaths in 2013 , roughly 842,000 were attributed to self-harm ( suicide ) , 405,000 to interpersonal violence , and 31,000 to collective violence ( war ) and legal intervention . In Africa , out of every 100,000 people , each year an estimated 60.9 die a violent death . Corlin , past president of the American Medical Association said : `` The United States leads the world -- in the rate at which its children die from firearms . '' He concluded : `` Gun violence is a threat to the public health of our country . '' For each single death due to violence , there are dozens of hospitalizations , hundreds of emergency department visits , and thousands of doctors ' appointments . Furthermore , violence often has lifelong consequences for physical and mental health and social functioning and can slow economic and social development .   In 2013 , assault by firearm was the leading cause of death due to interpersonal violence , with 180,000 such deaths estimated to have occurred . The same year , assault by sharp object resulted in roughly 114,000 deaths , with a remaining 110,000 deaths from personal violence being attributed to other causes .   Violence in many forms is preventable . There is a strong relationship between levels of violence and modifiable factors such as concentrated poverty , income and gender inequality , the harmful use of alcohol , and the absence of safe , stable , and nurturing relationships between children and parents . Strategies addressing the underlying causes of violence can be effective in preventing violence .

Cold War <=SEP=> The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc ( the Soviet Union and its satellite states ) and powers in the Western Bloc ( the United States , its NATO allies and others ) . Historians do not fully agree on the dates , but a common timeframe is the period between 1947 , the year the Truman Doctrine ( a U.S. foreign policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism ) was announced , and 1991 , the year the Soviet Union collapsed .   The term `` cold '' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides involved in the conflict , although there were major regional wars , known as proxy wars , supported by the two sides . The Cold War split the temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany , leaving the Soviet Union and the United States as two superpowers with profound economic and political differences . The USSR was a Marxist -- Leninist state led by its Communist Party of the Soviet Union , who in turn were led by a leader , with different titles over time , and a small committee called the Politburo . The Party controlled the press , the military , the economy and many organization . It also controlled the other states in the Eastern Bloc , and funded Communist parties around the world , sometimes in competition with Communist China , particularly following the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s . In opposition stood the West , staunchly democratic and capitalist with a free press and independent organizations . A small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement ; it sought good relations with both sides . The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat , but they were heavily armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war . Each side had a nuclear strategy that discouraged an attack by the other side , on the basis that such an attack would lead to the total destruction of the attacker : the doctrine of mutually assured destruction ( MAD ) . Aside from the development of the two sides ' nuclear arsenals , and their deployment of conventional military forces , the struggle for dominance was expressed via proxy wars around the globe , psychological warfare , massive propaganda campaigns and espionage , rivalry at sports events , and technological competitions such as the Space Race .   The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945 . The USSR consolidated its control over the states of the Eastern Bloc , while the United States began a strategy of global containment to challenge Soviet power , extending military and financial aid to the countries of Western Europe ( for example , supporting the anti-communist side in the Greek Civil War ) and creating the NATO alliance . The Berlin Blockade ( 1948 -- 49 ) was the first major crisis of the Cold War . With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War ( 1950 -- 53 ) , the conflict expanded . The USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America , and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia . Meanwhile , the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets . The expansion and escalation sparked more crises , such as the Suez Crisis ( 1956 ) , the Berlin Crisis of 1961 , and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 . Following the Cuban Missile Crisis , a new phase began that saw the Sino-Soviet split complicate relations within the communist sphere , while US allies , particularly France , demonstrated greater independence of action . The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia , and the Vietnam War ( 1955 -- 75 ) ended with the defeat of the US-backed Republic of Vietnam , prompting further adjustments .   By the 1970s , both sides had become interested in making accommodations in order to create a more stable and predictable international system , inaugurating a period of détente that saw Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People 's Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union . Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet -- Afghan War in 1979 . The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension , with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 ( 1983 ) , and the `` Able Archer '' NATO military exercises ( 1983 ) . The United States increased diplomatic , military , and economic pressures on the Soviet Union , at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation . In the mid-1980s , the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika ( `` reorganization '' , 1987 ) and glasnost ( `` openness '' , c. 1985 ) and ended Soviet involvement in Afghanistan . Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe , especially Poland . Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past . The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully ( with the exception of the Romanian Revolution ) overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe . The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991 . This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 and the collapse of communist regimes in other countries such as Mongolia , Cambodia and South Yemen . The United States remained as the world 's only superpower .   The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy . It is often referred to in popular culture , especially in media featuring themes of espionage ( e.g. the internationally successful James Bond movie franchise ) and the threat of nuclear warfare .