in the shell

Wasn't sure if this should be general or only part of the tv series:

I watched the first few episodes of the first season a while ago and read the mangas, but it was a long time ago and I think I forgot some things about the general universe. It wasn't until recently I decided to watch the rest of the anime. I noticed that in they keep referring to a war they took part in before. Specifically they accused the chinese prime minister of some kind of war crime. Just wondering if someone could elaborate a little on this war. Also, how did they all survive that explosion near the end??

Well there are some pages on this Forum about that stuff.
http://www.neomythos.com/gitsphpBB/viewtopic.php?t=36
http://www.neomythos.com/gitsphpBB/viewtopic.php?t=60

Btw: The war was WW4 or WW3
WW3 was a war between USA and some other nation/power.
It got nuclear , and Japan came up with the Japanese miracle that removed all radiation.
Thus Japan became one of the new superpowers in the world.
And for some reason USA was devided into a North part and a South part.
North joined Russia in a alliance.
South became the American Empire.
EU also got pretty beaten up in WW3.

WW4 was a war in and around vietnam , with Japan and American Empire as allies against someone(possibly china).
Japan and AE won that war.


There was also some UN(American,british,japanese soldiers comfirmed) involvment in South america.