A great deal of Cold War fiction was the US having to actually deal with and be friends with the Soviet Union. And how great it would be that we'd mature to become friends and understand each other. That didn't pan out in the long term. For a short time in the 1980s and early 1990s, yes. But we basically declared victory with the collapse of the Soviet Union and never achieved introspection as the futurists assumed we'd certainly have to. I always felt this was rather sad and robbed us of that maturity.
What if we had to deal with a situation where the Reagan late 80s end of the Cold War occurred, but we had to continue dealing with a standing Soviet Union?