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Acold war is a state ofconflict between nations that does not involve directmilitary action but is pursued primarily througheconomic and political actions,propaganda, acts ofespionage orproxy wars waged by surrogates. This term is most commonly used to refer to theAmerican–Soviet Cold War of 1947–1991. The surrogates are typically states that aresatellites of the conflicting nations, i.e., nations allied to them or under theirpolitical influence. Opponents in a cold war will often provide economic or military aid, such as weapons, tactical support or military advisors, to lesser nations involved in conflicts with the opposing country.
The expression "cold war" was rarely used before 1945. Some writers credit the fourteenth century SpaniardDon Juan Manuel for first using the term (in Spanish) regarding the conflict between Christianity and Islam; however the term employed was "tepid" rather than "cold". The word "cold" first appeared in a faulty translation of his work in the 19th century.[1]
In 1934, the term was used in reference to a faith healer who received medical treatment after being bitten by a snake. The newspaper report referred to medical staff's suggestion that faith had played a role in his survival as a "truce in the cold war between science and religion".[2]
Regarding its contemporary application to a conflict between nation-states, the phrase appears for the first time in English in an anonymous editorial published inThe Nation Magazine in March 1938 titled "Hitler's Cold War".[3][4] The phrase was then used sporadically in newspapers throughout the summer of 1939 to describe the nervous tension and spectre of arms-buildup and mass-conscription prevailing on the European continent (above all in Poland) on the eve of World War II. It was described as either a "cold war" or a "hot peace" in which armies were amassing in many European countries.[5]Graham Hutton, Associate Editor ofThe Economist used the term in his essay titled "The Next Peace" published in the August 1939 edition ofThe Atlantic Monthly (todayThe Atlantic). It elaborated on the notion of cold war perhaps more than any English-language invocation of the term to that point, and garnered a least one sympathetic reaction in a subsequent newspaper column.[6][7] The Poles claimed that this period involved "provocation by manufactured incidents."[8] It was also speculated that cold war tactics by the Germans could weaken Poland's resistance to invasion.[9]
During the war, the term was also used in less lasting ways, for example to describe the prospect of winter warfare,[10] or in opinion columns encouraging American politicians to make a cool-headed assessment before deciding whether to join the war or not.[11]
At the end ofWorld War II,George Orwell used the term in the essay "You and theAtom Bomb" published on October 19, 1945, in the British magazineTribune. Contemplating a world living in the shadow of the threat ofnuclear war, he warned of a "peace that is no peace", which he called a permanent "cold war".[12] Orwell directly referred to that war as the ideological confrontation between theSoviet Union and theWestern powers.[13] Moreover, inThe Observer of March 10, 1946, Orwell wrote that "[a]fter theMoscow conference last December, Russia began to make a 'cold war' onBritain and theBritish Empire."[14]
The definition which has now become fixed is of a war waged through indirect conflict. The first use of the term in this sense, to describe the post–World War IIgeopolitical tensions between theUSSR and its satellites and theUnited States and its western European allies, is attributed toBernard Baruch, an American financier and presidential advisor.[15] In South Carolina, on April 16, 1947, he delivered a speech (by journalistHerbert Bayard Swope)[16] saying, "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war."[17] Newspaper reporter-columnistWalter Lippmann gave the term wide currency, with the bookCold War (1947).[18]
The term "hot war" is also occasionally used by contrast, but remains rare in literature onmilitary theory.[19]
According to academic Covell Meyskens, the term "cold war" was not employed inChina during theMaoist era.[20]
Since theUS–USSR Cold War (1947–1991), a number of global and regional tensions have also been called a cold war, both historical and modern.
In his 1964 article ofFrancis Drake'sNew Albion claim,Adolph S. Oko Jr. described certain 16th century tensions betweenEngland andSpain as a cold war.[21]
TheGreat Game, a colonial confrontation that occurred between the 19th centuryBritish andRussian Empires in Asia, has been variously described as a cold war,[22][23][24][25] though this has also been disputed.[26]
The Second Cold War,[27][28][29] also calledCold War II,[30][31] Cold War 2.0,[32][33] or the New Cold War,[34][35] is a term describing post-Cold-War era of political and military tensions between theUnited States and eitherRussia orChina.
Malcolm H. Kerr first coined the term "Arab Cold War" to refer to a political conflict inside theArab world betweenNasserist republics defendingArab socialism,Pan-Arabism, andArab nationalism led byNasser's Egypt, against traditionalistmonarchies led bySaudi Arabia.[36]
AnAtlantic Council member Bilal Y. Saab,[37] anAbout.com writer Primoz Manfreda,[38] an Iranian scholarSeyyed Hossein Mousavian and aPrinceton University scholar Sina Toossi,[39] journalistKim Ghattas,[40]Foreign Policy journalistYochi Dreazen,[41]Brookings Institution researcher Sultan Barakat,[42] andNewsweek journalist Jonathan Broder[43] use the term "cold war" to refer to tensions betweenSaudi Arabia and Iran.In February 2016, aUniversity of Isfahan professor Ali Omidi dismissed the assumptions that the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would grow tense.[44]
Commentator Ehsan Ahrari,[45] writerBruce Riedel,[46] political commentatorSanjaya Baru[47] and Princeton University academicZia Mian[48] have used the term "cold war" since 2002 to refer tolong-term tensions between India and Pakistan, which were part ofBritish India until itspartition in 1947.
Naval Postgraduate School academic Edward A. Olsen,[49][50] British politicianDavid Alton,[51]York University professor Hyun Ok Park,[52] andUniversity of Southern California professor David C. Kang[53] used the term to refer totensions between North Korea and South Korea, which have beendivided since the end ofWorld War II in 1945. They interchangeably called it the "Korean Cold War". In August 2019, the North Korean government said that further US–South Korean military cooperation would prompt North Korea to "trigger a new cold war on the Korean Peninsula and in the region."[54]
China'sDefense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng,[55]The Diplomat editor Shannon Tiezzi,[56] andThe Guardian columnistSimon Tisdall[57] used the term to refer totensions between China and Japan.
British writerEdward Crankshaw used the term to also refer to theSino-Soviet relations after theSino-Soviet split.[58] "Spy wars" also occurred between the USSR and China.[59]
Imran Ali Sandano of theUniversity of Sindh,[60] Arup K. Chatterjee of theJindal Global Law School,[61] journalistBertil Lintner,[62] writerBruno Maçães,[63] politician-lawyerP. Chidambaram,[64] politician and journalistSanjay Jha,[65] and some others[66][67] use the terms like "new cold war" to refer togrowing tensions between China and India.
In spring 2017, professor emeritusAngelo Codevilla used the term "cold civil war" to criticize "the ruling class—government bureaucracies, the judiciary, academia, media, associated client groups, Democratic officials, and Democrat-controlled jurisdictions"—and what Codevilla considered "against a majority of the American people and their way of life."[68]
In 2017 and 2019, journalistCarl Bernstein criticized then-PresidentDonald Trump, whom he called in 2019 "a sham, a con, a grifter [...] president of the United States", for exacerbating what Bernstein considered "cold civil war", citing in 2017 Trump administration's scapegoating ofHillary Clinton amid theMueller special counsel investigation and in 2019 his efforts to appeal "prejudices" of his supporters toward "the other side" whom they wanted "wiped out".[69][70]
The Washington Post columnistMatt Bai in January 2021 used "a Cold Civil War" in reference to the US "imminent disunion", especially by rural Americans who "live increasingly in their own reality, nourished by their own 'alternative facts' and led by their own reckless leaders" and "separate themselves from [American] urban culture and establishment media".[71]
A media studies professor David A. Love in March 2021 criticized theUS Republican Party for instigating "a cold civil war by pushing for unprecedented voter suppression measures targeting minority and marginalised communities".[72]
AGoverning magazine contributor Tony Woodlief in October 2021 criticized "political pundits", their use of the term, and their emphases of political class divide for "overlook[ing] ample data illuminating substantial common ground among Americans."[73]
Full quote in the context of industrial labor problems in the United States of America in 1947 which could only solved, according to Bernard Baruch, through "unity" between labor and management which in return would give the United States the power to play its role as the major force by which, in the words of Baruch, "the world can renew itself physically or spiritually.":"Let us not be deceived-we are today in the midst of a cold war. Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success. The peace of the world is the hope and the goal of our political system; it is the despair and defeat of those who stand against us. We can depend only on ourselves."
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Like the Cold War, the Great Game was largely a proxy battle whose protagonists rarely confronted each other directly.
A century ago a Cold War raged on the political, ideological, economic, military, and cultural fronts between the UK and an authoritarian Russian state which was perceived as threatening British imperial interests in India and elsewhere in Asia. Until the end of the 19th century, liberal Britain was arguably Russia's foremost enemy.
Others suggest it continued well after this time, that 'the game' was really the Victorian prologue to the cold war years...
Some would argue that the Great Game has never really ceased, and that it was merely the forerunner of the Cold War of our own times...
Sergeev is especially concerned to subvert understandings in which the Great Game is viewed as 'a Victorian cold war'