In George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984’, the world is ruled by three superstates:

• Oceania covers the entire continents of America and Oceania and the British Isles, the main location for the novel, in which they are referred to as ‘Airstrip One’.
• Eurasia covers Europe and (more or less) the entire Soviet Union.
• Eastasia covers Japan, Korea, China and northern India.

Unfortunately, there’s not much ’super’ to these states except their size. All three are totalitarian dictatorships. Oceania’s ideology is Ingsoc (English Socialism), Eurasia’s Neo-Bolshevism and Eastasia’s is the Obliteration of the Self (one imagines some kind of buddhist-inspired fascism. If one can). These ideologies are very similar, but the people are not informed of this.

The three states are in a perpetual state of warfare – sometimes two against one, sometimes all three against each other. These wars are fought in the disputed territories, running from North Africa over the Middle East and southern India to Southeast Asia.

And yet the war might just not even be real at all. It’s clear that the Oceanic media are one-sided and fabricate ‘facts’. A dissident book central to ‘1984’ suggests the two other powers may actually be a fabrication of the government of Oceania, which would make it the world government. Or, on the other side of the scale of thinkable alternatives: Airstrip One is not an outpost of a greater empire, but the sole territory under the command of Ingsoc, which fabricates eternal global war to keep its people permanently mobilised, scrutinised and on rations.