"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

- John F. Kennedy

"We don't propose to sit here in our rocking chair with our hands folded and let the Communists set up any government in the Western Hemisphere."

- Lyndon B. Johnson

"I believe this resolution to be a historic mistake. I believe that within the next century, future generations will look with dismay and great disappointment upon a Congress which is now about to make such a historic mistake."

- Wayne Morse

"The important thing is that we maintain plausible deniability."

- Richard Nixon

"Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot."

- Vladimir Lenin

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Ever since the breakup between the US and Europe in 1957, the progression of the Cold War hadn't been developing in favor of the Americans. Due to the Americans leaving the Trident Alliance, the US had lost most of its bases in Europe, Asia, and for a time, even Africa. In East Asia, the Japanese Empire constantly hindered any attempts by the Americans to set foot in what they considered to be the rightful Japanese sphere of influence. Even in the Americas, the United States' backyard was stained by the presence of three communist, or at least Soviet-leaning countries.

So, in a move to counterbalance both the declining imperialism of the Trident Alliance, and especially the socialist system of the Soviet Union, and later on, the Moscow Pact, the US together with China would form their own bloc, known as the Organization of Free Nations (OFN), in an attempt to regain their lost influence. Yet the co-led faction's successes would be mixed.

Due to the US's support of Israel, the OFN would see no success in expanding in the Middle East and would only manage to keep its associates, Saudi Arabia and the Imperial State of Iran. Meanwhile, in the Indian subcontinent, the minor Indian states would side with the OFN as a deterrent against the Soviet-leaning Republic of India and the Republic of Bengal, but those states were mostly aligned with China rather than the US.

In Africa, when the OFN was formed, only the nations of Liberia and Morocco had joined it, mostly due to their distrust of the colonial powers of the Trident Alliance and the Latin Bloc still present on the continent.

The US's biggest successes would only be in the Philippines, which gave them a large area of operation in Asia and allowed them to secure a route to China in case of war against the USSR. In Latin America, a series of military coups led to pro-American governments in Mexico, Argentina, Haiti, and so on. Meanwhile, the South American juggernaut of Brazil, one of the founding members of the OFN, alongside Uruguay, allowed the Americans to increase their operations in Latin America.

The only remaining area of the world where the OFN lacked influence was Europe, where the Trident Alliance dominated the continent. However, there was one neutral nation that had close ties with the US: Ireland. With the promises of economic benefits, the Irish government agreed to break their neutrality and join the OFN, giving the US a base of operation in Europe, even though its strategic location was not the most favorable for any real operations in the North Sea, nor in the continent.

For the rest of the 50s and all of the 60s, this would be the situation of the OFN and the US as a whole: a third faction lacking in influence, while the Trident Alliance and the Moscow Pact intensified their competition. But when the 70s began swinging around, and the colonial powers finally reached their end, the USA would finally see a chance to spread its influence globally...

But reality wouldn't turn out to be as idealistic as they expected. Instead of the Organization of Free Nations expanding, its main rival, the Moscow Pact, would capitalize on the aftermath of the colonial collapse in Africa. The newly independent nations flocked into the arms of the USSR, which had supported their insurgency against the Europeans from beginning to end.

Africa was rapidly becoming a red continent. Unwilling to accept this outcome, the US government intensified its covert operations both in Africa and the Americas. They instigated military coups to overthrow the Soviet-leaning governments, and if they failed, they supported nationalist forces in the eventual civil war. In this region, the US only saw two nations siding with the OFN: the Congo, after a successful military coup, and Apartheid South Africa. Thanks to their strategic position in the Cape of Good Hope and staunchly anti-communist government, the various US administrations overlooked their oppressive racial policies, in exchange for growing their anti-communist faction.

In the Americas, the situation was much more favorable to the Americans, as most of their operations succeeded in bringing anti-communist governments to power. However, the CIA still faced failures, especially in the Pacific nations of South America.

The reason for these failures was the combination of Japanese and Soviet meddling in American operations in those regions. Japan had long considered the entire Pacific Ocean as its rightful sphere of influence. Thus, it would occasionally engage in diplomacy with the Pacific American nations to further its influence in the region, which directly contradicted the US Monroe Doctrine.

For the USSR, influencing the region was simply a matter of establishing a springboard from which they could expand their influence while simultaneously undermining American influence globally.

This covert conflict would come to a head in Chile, where a CIA-backed coup failed to materialize when loyalist forces, with the support of Japanese assets, forced the revolting forces to surrender. That would have been the end of it if it hadn't been for the capture of American spies during the chaos caused by the attempted putsch. They were forced to reveal their support for the coup.

This triggered a series of dominoes to fall, as many governments that hadn't yet fallen to pro-American dictatorships preemptively began to hunt for American spies and assets and rounding up non-loyalist forces in their armed forces. This forced the CIA to reduce or withdraw its assets from those nations as they prepared for their next plans of action.

Although American influence wasn't entirely removed, it was severely reduced, causing many of the remaining nations to see the United States as untrustworthy. This was especially damaging to the OFN, as Brazil and Uruguay left the faction, fearing that remaining in it would only make it easier for the CIA to stage a coup within their borders.

At the same time, while the scandal of the potential American presence in various coups and civil wars around the globe still raged on, the Empire of Japan declared its intentions to defend democracy in Asia, the Pacific, and the world. The nation, which had itself fought a nearly genocidal war in Korea and supported non-democratic governments in Asia and beyond from time to time, was able to seize for itself the mantle of the defender of democracy, thanks to the US' blunder in Chile, and only fostering the rivalry between the two economic giants.

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As the 70s were coming to a close, the USSR embroiled itself in Afghanistan. With the justification of defending the ruling government, Soviet forces invaded and then installed a puppet government in the nation, causing them to start fighting a guerrilla war in Afghanistan. It didn't take long for the US and China to start supporting the various mujahideen groups fighting the Soviets. Little intervention would be seen from the Trident Alliance members, as their members showed little interest in involving themselves in Afghanistan.

Then, a few years later in 1982, another war would take the spotlight. It started when Argentinian forces invaded the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, triggering the United Kingdom to react in response. Although the conflict over the islands was already known due to the various diplomatic clashes between the two nations, the invasion surprised the American government since Argentina was an American ally and a member of the OFN. However, the United Kingdom was also an important trade partner and necessary to counter any Soviet dash through the North Sea.

The biggest change caused by the conflict would be, once again, in Chile. The Chilean government saw the Argentinian aggression as a clear sign that the military government of Argentina was willing to use military action to solve a territorial dispute, that the two nations had.

Because of that, the Chilean government applied for membership in the Trident Alliance, which was approved by the big three of the alliance: the United Kingdom, France, and Japan, as well as the rest of the alliance in a majority vote. This officially brought the nation into the alliance a few weeks later.

This unexpected development forced Argentina to divert much of its forces west, especially when the Empire of Japan announced that it would be sending a carrier and battleship group alongside a sizable Air Service group to be stationed in Chile as a "deterrent" against Argentina. Due to the long relationship between the UK and Japan as allies, that same task force and air force could easily be used to assist the British in the war.

This diversion of forces allowed the British forces to operate more safely in the region. With the assistance of HMS Vanguard's AA defenses, they managed to take down most of the Argentine Air Force used in the conflict, thus reducing the potential losses the British Army could have otherwise incurred.

With the end of the conflict, the Japanese forces were diverted back to the home islands, with the justification of avoiding an unnecessary rise of tensions in South America after the end of the Falklands War.

More changes would come in the 80s. With the ascension of Gorbachev as leader of the Soviet Union, the nation began a series of internal reforms in an attempt to restart its economy and liberalize its government. However, for the first to happen, the Union needed capital, capital it didn't have due to its massive spending in the military and on foreign subsidies. So, Gorbachev turned to the West for investment, especially in the Trident Alliance, due to their neighboring status.

The meetings were met with a series of topics, but the ones that became the most intense were the ones with Poland and Romania, both of which refused to allow any investment or trade with the USSR unless it returned their lands taken before 1944. Their agreement was of extreme importance since those two nations could practically stop any large-scale trade between the richer Western members and the USSR.

With the interests of both sides in decreasing tensions and avoiding another large-scale war, this resulted in a compromise. Poland would be returned the regions of Podlasie and Galicia, while Romania would be returned the region of Bessarabia, and in return, the USSR would receive an investment worth around 1 trillion dollars shared between all members of the Trident Alliance, alongside the end of the embargo imposed on the USSR.

Although the loss of land wasn't well received by the Soviet leadership, the foreign capital far outweighed the actual value of the land lost. Yet even with Western assistance, the Soviet economy would fail to be fixed by Perestroika, and the government would become the target of criticism due to Glasnost's reforms. In August 1991, after a failed coup by the Red Army, the Soviet Union would come to an end, and with it, so would the Moscow Pact and the defunct International Congress.

The many Soviet-aligned nations that had joined the IC would awkwardly return or join the United Nations, and many of the unions of different countries would start collapsing with the loss of Soviet economic assistance.

The Cold War had ended, the socialist system had failed, and the West had prevailed. But in its place, a power vacuum was left. A unifying factor had disappeared practically overnight, and national ambitions were changing.

The Cold War had ended, and a new world order had to arise in its place.