Part X: A New World Without Fear
For three quarters of a century, the world had been locked in a state of constant global conflict: the Cold War. Ironically, the tri-polar nature of world power had ensured that this period of confrontation was one of the most peaceful in recorded history, as international wars had become a rarity.
However, disturbances still existed, as passions and interests ebbed and flowed, leading to moments of great tension. The Indochinese Wars and the Tonkin Missile Crisis. The reformation of the USSR and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. By the end of the 20th century, the Muslim world had also gone through great changes, ones that would lead to the third great disturbance of the Cold War era.
Before the end of the Second Great European War, Iran had been occupied by foreign troops and through a coup had a Soviet-friendly government installed. Through the 60's and 70's, local resistance adopted a distinctly religious tone. However, by the end of 80's this resistance had failed, and the last insurgencies against the Soviet allied government had all but collapsed. Uninspired by the failure of islam to take the lead in anti-socialist sentiment. Ideas of jihad and islamic fundamentalism remained the fantasies of handful of aging exiles who had fled to Iraq.
1980: The Soviet-friendly government in Afghanistan had been increasing their cooperation with the Soviet Union.
By 1990, Afghanistan was economically and militarily completely dependent on the Soviets.
1999: With the reformation of the Soviet Union into a non-socialist, democratizing, loose federation, the representatives of Afghanistan petitioned their desire to join the Union of Soviet Sovereign States.
This move was well-supported by the northern regions of Afghanistan, as they were composed of a multitude of ethnic groups, many of which already had large communities in the S.U. However, the Pashtuns were a much more independent-minded group and had a clear dominance over large areas of Afghanistan.
2001: Already restless due to the reforms over past two decades, and with a surge in the population of young men, a Pashtun insurrection began. The government of Afghanistan requested assistance of the Soviet military, which was granted. This resistance quickly abandoned the ideal of a united Afghanistan in favor of Pashtun nationalism. Unrest spilled over the border into Pashtun regions in Pakistan as well. At first, Pakistan was eager to weaken their neighbors to the north and provided arms and aid to the rebels.
However, due to the failure of the previous Iranian insurrection, no charismatic character in the U.S. supported any large amount of covert aid.
Without large amounts of aid from the Americans, the Pakistani government became increasingly unstable, with popular dissent rising due to the neighboring conflicts as well.
2002: The Soviets had secured the entirety of the northern region, but the southern half of Afghanistan seethed. The conflict drew on as the youth of Afghanistan were bled, but had just enough supplies to avoid complete collapse.
2005: Decades of American apathy in the region allowed the Pakistani government's instability to come to a head. A coup d'état deposed the regime. While Pakistan had suffered from several coups before, Pakistan had been able, thanks to American support, been able to quickly re-cement their position. The lack of American interest and intervention in the region had isolated Pakistan.
Pashtuns in Pakistan joined the Afghan revolt and established a de-facto independent government in Pakistani territory during the moments of power vacuum following the coup.
India, taking advantage of the chaos, allowed small border raids on Pakistani positions to occur. The new Pakistani government, not wanted to appear weak, took the bait and issued a counter-attack. A border war ensued in which India gained the advantage and pressed into northern Kashmir.
This in turn set off two chain reactions. The Pakistan-Baloch split and the Chinese intervention.
There was a split in the Pakistani ruling military party between those who favored immediately ending all external conflicts in order to restore domestic order, and those who favored expanding the external conflicts, hoping to incur a nationalist rally-to-the-flag effect on the populace. The peace-seekers accused the war-seekers of recklessly bringing ruin to Pakistan, and that ending the wars, even on unfavorable terms was the path to future stability. The opposite side of the argument accused the peace-seekers of being weak cowards. If the government could be bullied by rebels and Indians, the people would overthrow them for sure, thus they had to stand firm.
Due to the internal division of the regime, most of the military officers who wanted a cease-fire with India and the Pashtun rebels fled to the south of the country, where with the help of Baloch nationalists they established their own regime that promised peaceful resolutions. The war-hawk officers took control over the north and continued to fight the Pashtun rebels and Indians in Kashmir, even though they continued to lose.
In order to avoid a greater catastrophe such as nuclear war between Pakistan and India, China declared to the U.N. that it would lead a coalition to intervene in the border war. Well-trained and well-equipped Chinese armies secured Kashmir. Chinese-led U.N. peacekeepers set up an independent country there that was neither Pakistani nor Indian.
2006: Pakistan claimed both of the new independent countries that were Baloch-Sindh and Kashmir, but could do nothing about them. In Afghanistan, a settlement was negotiated. Afghanistan would become a Soviet Sovereign Republic, but each region was allowed a referendum to decide which state to join, the new Pashtunistan that had been established in Pakistan, or the Afghan SSR. Additionally, many Balochis in the south-west of Afghanistan broke off from the Pashtuns to join the new Baloch-Sindh state.
2008: This time is marked as the beginning of the Arab Spring, as large protests against Saddam Hussein occurred, demanding reforms, democratization, human rights, and an end to poverty. These protests and riots would spread throughout the middle-east. Leading to the eventual overthrow of regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Oman, and Egypt. Violence and large protests would spread to include all of the Arab countries, from Algeria to Iraq, Syria to Yemen.
Waves of revolution and modernization would sweep the middle-east, although the long term-effects of these upheavals are still unknown.
End of Part X
The first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, political analysts re-evaluate the relative position of the countries of the world.
The Great Powers:
1. Ever since the end of the GWII, the US has stood at solid #1 with a huge economy and overwhelming military with near-global projection. Need we say more?
2. Nihon, though lagging behind in industry and military capabilities until the '60s, has experienced massive economic growth, is one of the richest per capita, and has translated their economic strength and technological superiority into military prowess.
3. China has grown well under the reasonable governance of the KMT. However, Nihonese naval control over much of the trade ways has limited Chinese trade opportunities -constraining the growth of the economy. Despite this (thanks in part to American training), the Chinese do have a military that boasts incredibly quality in addition to quantity.
4. The Soviet Union is a power in decline. Although it is technically one of the three superpowers, most would rank it below China on the scale of Great Powers. While still possessing the largest nuclear arsenal and a powerful military, the poor economy and federalization reforms have left this behemoth as a husk of its former glory. Many feel anxious over the possibility of the Soviet Union losing all of its foreign influence, leading the establishment of a bi-polar world between the US and Nihon.
5+6. France and the United Kingdom are the ancient time-tested Great Powers, though the age of European dominance has passed from living memory, their economies are the record-setters of development, their global deployment of military bases the vestiges of their long-gone colonial empires. Individually, their growing irrelevance as the "old men great powers" places them at the bottom of the list, though if the E.U. were counted as a single entity it could reasonably place above China.
As I have reached the present date, this timeline is essentially complete.
However, I will post new updates on request in order to "fill out" topics and events that are not sufficiently well-addressed in the main 10 chapters.
). It was more the general patriotic sentiment in the lyrics, or at least the subtitles (don't speak Korean). I wasn't entirely serious 
