A cold war is a state of
conflict between nations that does not involve direct
military action but is pursued primarily through
economic and political actions,
propaganda, acts of
espionage or
proxy wars waged by surrogates. This term is most commonly used to refer to the
American-Soviet Cold War of 1947–1989. The surrogates are typically states that are
satellites of the conflicting nations, i.e., nations allied to them or under their
political 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.
Origins of the term
The expression "cold war" was rarely used before 1945. Some writers credit the fourteenth century Spaniard
Don 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 in The 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 of The Economist used the term in his essay titled "The Next Peace" published in the August 1939 edition of The Atlantic Monthly (today The 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 of
World War II,
George Orwell used the term in the essay "You and the
Atom Bomb" published on October 19, 1945, in the British magazine Tribune. Contemplating a world living in the shadow of the threat of
nuclear 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 the
Soviet Union and the
Western powers.[13] Moreover, in The Observer of March 10, 1946, Orwell wrote that "[a]fter the
Moscow conference last December, Russia began to make a 'cold war' on
Britain and the
British 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 II
geopolitical tensions between the
USSR and its satellites and the
United States and its western European allies, is attributed to
Bernard Baruch, an American financier and presidential advisor.[15] In South Carolina, on April 16, 1947, he delivered a speech (by journalist
Herbert Bayard Swope)[16] saying, "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war."[17] Newspaper reporter-columnist
Walter Lippmann gave the term wide currency, with the book Cold War (1947).[18]
The term "hot war" is also occasionally used by contrast, but remains rare in literature on
military theory.[19]
According to academic Covell Meyskens, the term "cold war" was not employed in
China during the
Maoist era.[20]
Tensions labeled a cold war
Since the
US–USSR Cold War (1947–1989), a number of global and regional tensions have also been called a cold war.
The
Great Game, a colonial confrontation that occurred between the 19th century
British and
Russian Empires in Asia, has been variously described as a cold war,[22][23][24][25] though this has also been disputed.[26]
A slim majority of Americans have stated that they believe a 'cold' civil war exists between members of the political left and political right in the United States. There have been multiple causes for this, such as the
2016 and
2020 presidential elections, the
January 6th attack on the capital by right-wing rioters, and increasing political polarization. [68][69][70][71]
See also
Look up cold war in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
^History.com Staff (2009).
"This Day on History - April 16, 1947: Bernard Baruch coins the term "Cold War"". A+E Networks. Retrieved August 23, 2016. 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."
^Marks, M.P. (2011). "Metaphors of International Security". Metaphors in International Relations Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 107–135.
doi:
10.1057/9780230339187_6.
ISBN978-1-349-29493-0.
^"BRITAIN AND RUSSIA FOUGHT A 19TH CENTURY COLD WAR". Chicago Tribune. 30 September 1992. Retrieved 2022-08-08. Like the Cold War, the Great Game was largely a proxy battle whose protagonists rarely confronted each other directly.
^Hopkirk, Peter (2006-03-27). "Prologue".
The Great Game. John Murray Press.
ISBN978-1-84854-477-2. 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...
^Eve Conant (12 September 2014).
"Is the Cold War Back?". National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Archived from
the original on September 13, 2014. Retrieved 4 February 2015.