Introversion

Interested in the general opinion in relation to this topic, did the Cold War keep the world in check as such. Due to the fact that any major conflict would result in NATO or the Warsaw Pact nations getting involved. Also that most nations had the habit of hiding behind either the Soviet Union or the United States

I don't know that it really helped one way or other. I think the Cold War was a product of the decision after WWII that full scale war between major powers was too devastating to both sides to be useful. The Cold War was just the power struggle between nations moving off the battle field and into the labs, factories and diplomatic channels. In this sense I'm not sure it actually prevented all that much war since war was largely out of the question anyway. The power struggle did however spark smaller conflicts around the world which we are still dealing with now. The birth a lot of the major terrorist groups are rooted in the Cold War proxy struggles for example.

*shrugs* i wasn't born yet...i don't think O_o wait, when did it end?

Either way i don't think it mattered too much, there is always going to be a war going on somewhere, infact i would be highly impressed if some clever person could name a period in history when there wasn't a war of some kind going on

The very very very beginning, whenever that was.

Way before us humans popped up and made a mess of everything