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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.
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]
Since the US–USSR Cold War (1947–1989), a number of global and regional tensions have also been called a cold war.
In his 1964 article of Francis Drake's New Albion claim, Adolph S. Oko Jr. described certain 16th century tensions between England and Spain as a cold war. [21]
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]
The Second Cold War, [27] [28] [29] also called Cold 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 the United States and Russia and/or China.
Malcolm H. Kerr first coined the term "Arab Cold War" to refer to a political conflict inside the Arab world between Nasserist republics defending Arab socialism, Pan-Arabism, and Arab nationalism led by Nasser's Egypt, against traditionalist monarchies led by Saudi Arabia. [36]
An Atlantic Council member Bilal Y. Saab, [37] an About.com writer Primoz Manfreda, [38] an Iranian scholar Seyyed Hossein Mousavian and a Princeton University scholar Sina Toossi, [39] journalist Kim Ghattas, [40] Foreign Policy journalist Yochi Dreazen, [41] Brookings Institution researcher Sultan Barakat, [42] and Newsweek journalist Jonathan Broder [43] use the term "cold war" to refer to tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In February 2016, a University of Isfahan professor Ali Omidi dismissed the assumptions that the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would grow tense. [44]
Commentator Ehsan Ahrari, [45] writer Bruce Riedel, [46] political commentator Sanjaya Baru [47] and Princeton University academic Zia Mian [48] have used the term "cold war" since 2002 to refer to long-term tensions between India and Pakistan, which were part of British India until its partition in 1947.
Naval Postgraduate School academic Edward A. Olsen, [49] [50] British politician David Alton, [51] York University professor Hyun Ok Park, [52] and University of Southern California professor David C. Kang [53] used the term to refer to tensions between North Korea and South Korea, which have been divided since the end of World 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's Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng, [55] The Diplomat editor Shannon Tiezzi, [56] and The Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall [57] used the term to refer to tensions between China and Japan.
British writer Edward Crankshaw used the term to also refer to the Sino-Soviet relations after the Sino-Soviet split. [58] "Spy wars" also occurred between the USSR and China. [59]
Imran Ali Sandano of the University of Sindh, [60] Arup K. Chatterjee of the Jindal Global Law School, [61] journalist Bertil Lintner, [62] writer Bruno Maçães, [63] politician-lawyer P. Chidambaram, [64] politician and journalist Sanjay Jha, [65] and some others [66] [67] use the terms like "new cold war" to refer to growing tensions between China and India.
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]
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan emerged as an independent country through the partition of India in August 1947 and was admitted as a United Nations member state in September 1947. It is currently the second-largest country within the Muslim world in terms of population, and is also the only Muslim-majority country in possession of nuclear weapons. De facto, the country shares direct land borders with India, Iran, Afghanistan, and China.
Foreign relations of Saudi Arabia are the diplomatic and trade relations between Saudi Arabia and other countries around the world. The foreign policy of Saudi Arabia is focused on co-operation with the oil-exporting Gulf States, the unity of the Arab World, Islamic solidarity, and support for the United Nations. In practice, the main concerns in recent years have been relations with the US, the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Iraq, the perceived threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the effect of oil pricing. Saudi Arabia contributes large amounts of development aid to Muslim countries. From 1986 to 2006, the country donated £49 billion in aid.
Superpower describes a state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined means of economic, military, technological, political, and cultural strength as well as diplomatic and soft power influence. Traditionally, superpowers are preeminent among the great powers. While a great power state is capable of exerting its influence globally, superpowers are states so influential that no significant action can be taken by the global community without first considering the positions of the superpowers on the issue.
World War III, World War 3, WWIII, WW3, or the Third World War are the names given to a hypothetical global conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use since as early as 1941. Some apply it loosely to limited or more minor conflicts such as the Cold War or the war on terror. In contrast, others assume that such a conflict would surpass prior world wars in both scope and destructive impact.
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, that started in 1947 and lasted to 1991.
The Cold War originated in the breakdown of relations between the two main victors in World War II: United States and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, in the years 1945–1949.
In political science, a proxy war is as an armed conflict fought between two belligerents, wherein one belligerent is a non-state actor supported by an external third-party power. In the term proxy war, the non-state actor is the proxy, yet both belligerents in a proxy war can be considered proxies if both are receiving foreign military aid from a third party country. Acting either as a nation-state government or as a conventional force, a proxy belligerent acts in behalf of a third-party state sponsor. A proxy war is characterised by a direct, long-term, geopolitical relationship between the third-party sponsor states and their client states and non-state clients, thus the political sponsorship becomes military sponsorship when the third-party powers fund the soldiers and their matériel to equip the belligerent proxy-army to launch and fight and sustain a war to victory, and government power.
A buffer state is a country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers. Its existence can sometimes be thought to prevent conflict between them. A buffer state is sometimes a mutually agreed upon area lying between two greater powers, which is demilitarised in the sense of not hosting the armed forces of either power. The invasion of a buffer state by one of the powers surrounding it will often result in war between the powers.
Anti-Russian sentiment or Russophobia, is dislike or fear or hatred of Russia, Russian people, Russian culture, or Russian policy. The Collins English Dictionary defines it as intense and often irrational hatred of Russia. The opposite of Russophobia is Russophilia.
In international relations, a frozen conflict is a situation in which active armed conflict has been brought to an end, but no peace treaty or other political framework resolves the conflict to the satisfaction of the combatants. Therefore, legally the conflict can start again at any moment, creating an environment of insecurity and instability.
Iran and Pakistan established relations on 14 August 1947, the day of the independence of Pakistan, when Iran became the first country to recognize Pakistan. Both sides continue to cooperate economically where possible and have formed alliances in a number of areas of mutual interest, such as fighting the drug trade along their border and combating the insurgency in the Balochistan region.
The United Nations Peacekeeping efforts began in 1948. Its first activity was in the Middle East to observe and maintain the ceasefire during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Since then, United Nations peacekeepers have taken part in a total of 72 missions around the globe, 12 of which continue today. The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.
Bilateral relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been strained over several geopolitical issues, such as aspirations for regional leadership, oil export policy and relations with the United States and other Western countries. Diplomatic relations were suspended from 1987 to 1990, and in 2016 for seven years following certain issues like the intervention in Yemen, Iran embassy bombing in Yemen, incidents in 2015 Hajj, the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, the attack on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran. However, in March 2023, after discussions brokered by China, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to reestablish relations.
The Arab Cold War was a political rivalry in the Arab world from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, as part of the wider Cold War. It is generally accepted that the beginning of the Arab Cold War is marked by the Egyptian revolution of 1952, which eventually led to Gamal Abdel Nasser becoming president of Egypt in 1956. Thereafter, newly formed Arab republics, defined by revolutionary secular nationalism and inspired by Nasser's Egypt, engaged in political rivalries with conservative traditionalist Arab monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 is widely seen as the end of this period of internal conflict and rivalry. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was installed as the leader of Iran's theocratic government. A new era of Arab-Iranian tensions followed, overshadowing the bitterness of intra-Arab strife.
The Second Cold War, Cold War II, and the New Cold War are coined to describe heightened geopolitical tensions in the 21st century. The terms have been used to describe tense relations between the United States and China and between the United States and Russia—the successor state of the Soviet Union, which led the Eastern Bloc during the original Cold War.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other regions of the Muslim world. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. The struggle also extends to disputes or broader competition in other countries globally including in West, North and East Africa, South, Central, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
The History of Indian foreign policy refers to the foreign relations of modern India post-independence, that is the Dominion of India (from 1947 to 1950) and the Republic of India (from 1950 onwards).
The Cold War in Asia was a major dimension of the worldwide Cold War that shaped diplomacy and warfare from the mid-1940s to 1991. The main countries involved were the United States, the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, South Korea, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Taiwan. In the late 1950s, divisions between China and the Soviet Union deepened, culminating in the Sino-Soviet split, and the two then vied for control of communist movements across the world, especially in Asia.
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."
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'
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