The Deluge

The Deluge, also known as the The Lost Decades, was a time period beginning around the late 1980s characterized by the substantial increase in the frequency of interconnected armed conflicts, state failures, political instability, supply shocks, stagflation and a reduction in international trade worldwide induced by a breakdown in global supply chains. The period succeeded the 1970s oil crisis and the Postbellum period before that and presenting one of the most profound challenges to the postwar global order―establish by Teleon and subsequent institutions like the United Congress―many of whom were disbanded or rendered defunct. Historians debate on the formal start date, but the 198X [INSERT WAR] traditionally use to mark the start of the period with the signing of the 2000 Millennium Peace in XXX formally ceasing hostilities between the global major powers and re-establishing intergovernmental institutions such as the UC. The Deluge is traditionally seen as the high point of the 20th century War of Position and the closest the world has ever been to nuclear armageddon.

The main causes of the period are multifaceted, Scholars generally agree that declining terms of trade in the Global North brought by the higher commodity prices set by global resource clubs, further exacerbated emergence of new export regions in Hylasia and Abaria and the increasing militancy of major socialist powers such as Adanal and Equatoria, fuelled widespread anxiety among policymakers in Calesia and Elias Boreal, where fears of stagnation and domestic communist infiltration soon became pervasive. The global energy shock induced by the second Adanali revolution and fracturing of the international communist movement led to immense political instability across the globe, often culminating in coups and civil wars, and in Calesia in particular the rise of militant anti-communist parties who saw the new radical and equally interventionist governments in Equatoria, Adanali and elsewhere as existential risks. The collapse of various key developing countries and disorganisation of the communist bloc provided an avenue for the Northbund and Free States to engage in direct interventions in key regions alongside arming proxy groups with the intent of affecting regime change, with the far more uncoordinated communist bloc matching their efforts, increasingly leading to more direct confrontations between the militaries of all Great Powers. Despite this and outside the brief Six-Day War between the Ruthish states, neither blocs actually engaged in warfare on their territories due to a general reluctance of acknowledging that both sides were at war out of fear of nuclear conflict, with a greater reliance on unconventional hybrid tactics such as the sponsorship of local terrorist cells, economic sabotage, lawfare, and disinformation aimed at inducing political crises domestically.