[b][u]The Cold War[/u][/b]

[i]The timeline is the same - in broad strokes and in all the ways that are important - up until the 1980s, where the landscape shifts slightly and the timelines diverge.[/i]

During the 1980's, the USA and USSR held several talks aimed at defusing the resurgent tensions of the Cold War. While things had settled down - to a degree - in the 70s, the 80s saw a resurgence due to Soviet activities in Afghanistan, as well as in other spheres of interest and through other activities. Technology was advancing rapidly as well, and new generations of weaponry had created something of a new arms race and competition, as well as increasing economic and social pressures on all sides. 

Despite promising starts, and many positive outcomes, overall the talks between Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev did not lead to a cooling of tensions as much as might be hoped, although agreements were made for the continuing reduction of Strategic and Tactical NBC weapons. 
Gorbachev's policies at home in Soviet Russia were not as welcomed as they were by the West, and fearful of the results of decentralized power and the lack of influence over the Soviet satellite states, a cabal of military officers and high-level politicians organized a coup, and in 1991, they successfully overthrew President Gorbachev and his government. They immediately reversed many of his policies and quickly instituted many of their own. 

While the USSR and Russia in particular were still suffering from economic stagnation and criticial shortages of medicine, fuel, food and other essentials, the sweeping and decisive reforms managed to first patch together and then later reinforce much of the areas that had been so heavily affected, giving the USSR a stronger foot to stand on than it had had for decades. 
Things were far from being 'good', or even 'prosperous', but they were certainly stable, at least for the meantime, and enough so that the USSR was able to mount a credible threat and challenge to Western and Capitalist domination. 

For their part, the Western powers intervened and provided aid and support wherever possible, both overtly and covertly. While all-out conflict was to be avoided as much as possible, providing military, material and economic support to third-world countries, especially in Africa, South-East Asia and South America. These interventions sowed much of the seed for the reform and developments of these regions, and set the foundations for what would become new centers of economic power and commercial development in the 21st century. 

With the continuation of the Cold War and the continuation of its' tensions and conflict, development, funding and deployment of conventional military technologies continued apace. The SDI - 'Star Wars' - programme reached operational status. The soviet [i]Buran[/i] orbiter was developed and put into service, and both the USA and USSR deployed orbiting manned Space Stations, with both later involving international partners and allies. Additionally, military stations were deployed. 
Many models of combat aircraft and vehicles reached full production and were stockpiled, and even deployed in support of proxy wars across the globe, engaging in combat over Central Africa, South America, the Middle East, and the Far East. 

Notable wars or conflicts during this period were the collapse of South African Apartheid and the 'Bush War' of the area, which was a long period of conflict over several years as Soviet-sponsored, trained, and supplied groups fought against the South African Defence Forces. When the South African parliament voted to end Apartheid, long-standing sanctions were lifted by Western powers, and they deployed forces and gave materiel and economic aide to combat the insurgent forces. 

The Iraq War in 1991 - commonly known as 'The Gulf War' - began in 1991, with the Iraqi forces supplied and trained by Soviet personnel. The war became especially notable and a high tension point after Chemical and Biological weapons were deployed on the front lines by Iraqi troops against the advice of Soviet advisors, against Western Coalition troops. In other parts of the conflict, Soviet pilots and their aircraft, as well as Soviet armour crews and their vehicles engaged their Western counterparts in direct conflict for the first time, each side learning a lot about the others' equipment and tactics. The conflict lasted approximately eight months, before both sides drew back.

The Yugoslav wars of the 1990s were a direct conflict between the Eastern and Western ideologies. While Yugoslavia itself collapsed into six republics, these held differing ideologies and as such there was a clash of sentiments as different groups tried to asset power and influence, and the external influences of the West and East also tried to gain a foothold over the other. 
As a result, Soviet forces backed the nascent communist-aligned nations, while NATO powers backed their opposite, resulting in direct clashes between both as well as the armies and states they back. The warfare that followed lasted from 1992-1998, finally coming to a close after individual accords were signed in various countries and resulting in an area of great ethnic, religious and political unrest as several different cultures and peoples ground up against one another in close proximity, held in a tenuous peace only by several complex treaties and agreements. 

As well as the wider scale conflict between East and West, there were also a number of other regional uprisings and conflicts that were directly or indirectly influenced by one side or the other. Soviet forces and Soviet-aligned or supplied nations and groups often supplied and supported insurgencies and uprisings across the worlds. Many terrorist or extremist anti-government groups only tangentially aligned to communist ideals were supported and supplied with Soviet-made weapons and equipment, or trained by KGB advisors in overseas training camps. 
Anti-government insurrectionists in Central and South America caused problems, with drug cartels and insurgent groups blurring lines as they became powerful enough to challenge the elected governments. In the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, as well as in the far east, similar ideological, religious or ethnic groups fought insurgent conflicts against their governments, often challenged and opposed overtly or covertly by Western allies and powers, and supplied, aided or equipped by them. 

This wider tapestry of conflict set the stage for the dawning of the 21st century, and as the calendar ticked over from the last year of the 20th century and into the beginnings of the 21st, the specter of the Cold War still loomed over the heads of everyone, and was an inescapable reality of life. 

[i]Author's Note: This is the first major point of divergence. The most notable thing is that the Berlin Wall did not come down, and of course; the Soviet Union did not break apart. This results in a very different 1990s in some ways, but with many of the same events, just playing out differently in some ways. This provides a fertile background for characters old enough to have gained experience in direct combat, or have relatives who would have done the same. It also lays the foundations for the post-Heavenfall period. Notably 9/11 did not happen, and there was, as a result, no second Gulf War or war in Afghanistan.[/i]