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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 1947–1991. 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 (1947–1991), 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.
In spring 2017, professor emeritus Angelo 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, journalist Carl Bernstein criticized then-President Donald 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 of Hillary Clinton amid the Mueller 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 columnist Matt 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 the US Republican Party for instigating "a cold civil war by pushing for unprecedented voter suppression measures targeting minority and marginalised communities". [72]
A Governing 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]
Asia is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometers, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Its 4.7 billion people constitute roughly 60% of the world's population.
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.
World War III, also known as the Third World War, is a hypothetical future global conflict subsequent to World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). It is widely assumed that such a war would involve all of the great powers, like its predecessors, as well as the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, surpassing all prior conflicts in geographic scope, devastation and loss of life.
The Cold War was a period of global geopolitical tension and struggle for ideological and economic influence between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, that started in 1947, two years after the end of World War II, and lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. Aside from the nuclear arms race starting in 1949 and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed indirectly via psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, sports diplomacy, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.
A middle power is a state that is not a superpower or a great power, but still exerts influence and plays a significant role in international relations. These countries often possess certain capabilities, such as strong economies, advanced technologies, and diplomatic influence, that allow them to have a voice in global affairs. Middle powers are typically seen as bridge-builders between larger powers, using their diplomatic skills to mediate conflicts and promote cooperation on international issues.
In political science, a proxy war is an armed conflict where at least one of the belligerents is directed or supported by an external third-party power. In the term proxy war, a belligerent with external support is the proxy; 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 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.
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 they were more recently suspended from 2016 to 2023 again following certain issues like the intervention in Yemen, Iran embassy bombing in Yemen, incidents during the 2015 Hajj, the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, and 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. As of October 2024, Saudi Arabia and Iran have made efforts to improve their relations. In a meeting in Doha, Qatar, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud discussed the promotion of bilateral ties, Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, and Iran’s recent “retaliatory attacks” on Israel. The two sides emphasized the need to set aside their differences and work towards the expansion of relations.
The Arab Cold War was a political rivalry in the Arab world from the early 1950s to the late 1970s and a 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 led to Gamal Abdel Nasser becoming president of Egypt in 1956. Thereafter, newly formed Arab republics, inspired by revolutionary secular nationalism and Nasser's Egypt, engaged in political rivalries with conservative traditionalist Arab monarchies, influenced by Saudi Arabia. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the ascension of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as leader of Iran, is widely seen as the end of this period of internal conflicts and rivalry. A new era of Arab-Iranian tensions followed, overshadowing the bitterness of intra-Arab strife.
A Second Cold War, Cold War II, or the New Cold War has been used to describe heightened geopolitical tensions in the 21st century between usually, on one side, the United States and, on the other, either China or Russia—the successor state of the Soviet Union, which led the Eastern Bloc during the original Cold War.
The Yemeni civil war is an ongoing multilateral civil war that began in late 2014 mainly between the Rashad al-Alimi-led Presidential Leadership Council and the Mahdi al-Mashat-led Supreme Political Council, along with their supporters and allies. Both claim to constitute the official government of Yemen.
The Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, or the Iran-Saudi Arabia rivalry, is 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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