Another way of doing it is breaking down the real world version and stylizing it, just as fiction has done since time immemorial. Sort of like how the Victorian and Edwardian eras were boiled down to a stylized "Steam Punk", more modern forms of warfare could similarly be simplified and fictionalized until you have something like "Atomic Punk", but for a larger era. 

Hell, I would describe Precipice styles as a sort of mix between Atomic Punk and a similar stylization of the sixties and seventies Cold war.