I was thinking about Leigh Brackett's Mars today (as I often do) and reflecting on how it isn't very science fictional at all, so that if you advanced the timeline of its colonial Mars about half a century to a century, you might get something that looks a bit like our modern world except with spaceships where Terran peacekeeping forces get bogged down in insurgencies or civil wars on Mars (or Venus).
With a set up like this, you could do the pulp Mars version of modern films set in conflict zones like Blackhawk Down or even better Three Kings. If you went with Earth in a sort of Cold War, you could even wind out with a Twilight:2000 sort of situation would troops lost on Mars and trying to figure out what to do next.
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Compare Turtledove's 1990 novel "A World of Difference," Stirling's 2006 "The Sky People," and Stirling's 2008 "In the Courts of the Crimson Kings." Turtledove most closely resembles what you describe in this post. Stirling's books are modern planetary romances, though still set during the Cold War. The Mars book in particular is almost Barker's Empire of the Petal Throne set on Barsoom.
Extending the idea to Twilight 2000 is interesting, and perhaps Bear's 1985 novel Eon approaches the idea of astronauts stranded and trying to return to Earth after the Cold War turns hot. For further inspiration from the pulp side of Mars, you might consider Clark Ashton Smith's various stories set on the red planet: The Dweller in the Gulf, The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, and Vulthoom.
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