Flashpoints and Crises

The Cold War was a long series of crises: divided cities, contested straits, insurgencies, colonies demanding their freedom. In Atomic Dawn these are flashpoints. Each is a live dispute with a tension score from 0 to 100, a set of powers taking sides, and a list of moves open to everyone with a stake in it. You can watch several at once, push some, calm others, and try to keep the one that matters most from boiling over.

All of it lives on the Flashpoints screen and the Flashpoints map mode (see Map Modes). Each flashpoint belongs to the theater that holds most of its disputed land.

Stages

A flashpoint's stage follows its tension:

Everyone involved is notified when a dispute turns Tense or Critical. The screen lists every daily driver of a dispute's tension and charts its tension month by month. It also keeps a log of every move, Council vote and stage change.

Where flashpoints come from

The 1946 start authors only a few disputes, such as the Greek Civil War and Indochina. Most grow out of the state of the world:

• Lost provinces. Any country that claims land another holds can raise a dispute over it. The worse their relations, the likelier the dispute and the hotter it opens. Iran and the Soviet zone of Iran start out loathing each other, so their dispute is live and Tense on the first day.
• Divided nations. Two rival governments that each claim the other's land, like the two sides of the Chinese Civil War.
• Insurgencies. An agitated opposition faction with strongholds can take up arms, with a foreign power of the same ideology as its patron.
• Separatist movements among stateless nations, and colonial independence pushes by a colony's most agitated movement.
• Coup plots and power struggles inside a single country (see Coups and Power Struggles).
• Wars that begin without a dispute behind them open one at once, at the War stage.

A flashpoint is live only while both of its sides exist and hold land. A dispute between states that don't exist yet lies dormant until they appear. When the Korean or German occupation zones become states, the new states take over their side.

What drives tension

Tension rises from the claim itself, mutual Threat Levels and troops massed on the frontier, unrest in the disputed provinces, and the parties' opposing superpower alignments. It also rises from bad relations (in full once their combined opinion reaches −200) and from hostile diplomatic postures. Détente and non-aggression postures cool it, and so does mediation.

Public stances

Any country that isn't a party can take a public stance. It can support either side as Sympathetic, Committed or Guarantor, or act as Mediator. A stance costs political capital once, when you take it or change it. The base price rises with the dispute's stage, from 5 political capital while it's quiet to 25 in a standoff, and is multiplied by the level (×1, ×2, ×3).

Popular stances are cheap to take and expensive to drop. Unpopular ones are the reverse: dropping them refunds political capital. A stance is popular when it backs your own bloc or opposes the rival superpower's. Switching sides also costs 10 prestige.

Supporters raise tension a little each day, up to a cap however many there are, and mediators lower it. Stances matter most when a dispute ignites. Committed and Guarantor supporters enter the standoff already backing their side. At the bargaining table they also hold their client firm, since a leader weighing a concession counts its patrons' resolve against it.

Moves on a flashpoint

Each move costs political capital, changes tension at once, and has a cooldown.

• Claimant: Press the Claim (8 political capital, +8 tension, a little prestige), Stage a Border Incident (tension soars, at a cost in prestige and the defender's opinion), Propose Talks.
• Defender: Stand Firm or Offer Concessions.
• Outsiders: Call for Restraint or, for a great power, Issue a Public Warning to the claimant.
• Backers: Send Arms to the side they back without pledging to fight. Arms for a movement go into the faction's own stockpile, and it trains its brigades from them.

No side can simply drop a claim. A dispute ends by treaty, by war, or when the claimed land is no longer the defender's. Two countries can sign a Shelve the Claim clause (see Treaties), which drops tension to 0 and keeps it frozen until a provocation, as Kashmir, Korea and the Taiwan Strait stayed frozen for decades. A Recognise the Border clause, granted by the claimant, ends a dispute for good.

Diplomats can also be posted to a flashpoint. Ambassadors can run Good Offices, Shuttle Diplomacy, Canvass the Powers or a Security Council Delegation. Spymasters can Manufacture an Incident, Watch the Flashpoint or Undermine Talks. Agitators can run an International Campaign to win great-power opinion.

The Security Council

Any UN member can raise a Simmering or hotter dispute at the Security Council (see International Organizations). The Council votes thirty days later. A resolution needs seven votes. If it has them, any of the five permanent members can veto it, at a cost in prestige. A resolution that passes cuts tension at once and halves any rise in tension for a year, and a party that escalates in defiance of it loses extra prestige. After a failed or vetoed vote, the dispute can't be raised again for six months. Iran's disputes start the campaign already on the agenda.

Standoffs

At 100 tension, a dispute becomes a standoff, the full international crisis. Any number can run at once. A standoff opens with a 30-day window in which the powers take sides, then moves to escalation. Its escalation meter rises by a point a day, plus nuclear pressure from the leaders' alert levels and forward forces (see Nuclear Program). War begins at 100.

During escalation, either leader can offer the status quo, grant the demand, or (for territorial claims) hand over selected disputed provinces, optionally with a payment. A rejected offer adds three points of escalation. AI leaders weigh how much of the demand is granted, the conventional and nuclear balance, their backers' resolve, the leverage each side holds over the other, and the risk of war. From 45 escalation on they look for compromises. A settlement that moves territory is signed as a named treaty.

A standoff ends in one of three ways: a negotiated settlement, a backdown by one side, or war. In a war, Committed and Guarantor powers fight, and Sympathetic ones stay out. If one leader is the other's colony, it first declares independence. The flashpoint stays on the list during the war, and a ceasefire leaves it live with tension running again. If that tension reaches 100, the fighting resumes.