Cold war (general term)

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. 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), when dealing with the conflict between Christianity and Islam as a "cold war". However he used the term "tepid" not "cold". The word "cold" first appeared in a faulty translation of his work in the 19th century.

At the end of World War II, George Orwell used the term in the essay "You and the Atomic Bomb" published October 19, 1945, in the British newspaper 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". Orwell directly referred to that war as the ideological confrontation between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. 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."

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