I think the comparison between Vana'diel and post-WWII is very apt. In contrast, I'm not really following your War on Terror angle for Eorzea. One thing that really struck me about 1.0 FFXIV was the extreme emphasis on individualism and frontiersmanship that adventurers as a class of citizen enjoyed. The city-states were not overwhelmingly divided by racial lines like FFXI was and there was an air of freedom as NPCs talked up the 'rise of the age of the adventurer'. The closest analogues I can think of for this type of historical period would be a combination of the American West frontier expansion period (sense of adventure) and the Roaring '20s (widespread optimism, cultural boom). This dovetails nicely with the 7th Umbral Era storyline as the Roaring '20s crashed into the Great Depression (the Calamity).

I'm sure there's a closer analogue in Chinese and Japanese history to the atmosphere 1.0 tried to represent (perhaps China's Spring and Autumn period or Three Kingdoms period?), but my Asian history isn't really up to snuff to make a strong comparison.