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Cold war
Definitions
- 1 The period of hostility short of open war between the Soviet Bloc and the Western powers, especially the United States, between 1945 and 1991. historical
"Well Russia at the present time is at a crossroads. It is often said that the Cold War is over and that the West has won it- that's only half true. Because what has happened is that the communists have been defeated, but the ideas of freedom now are on trial. If they don't work, there will be a reversion to, not communism which has failed, but what I call a new despotism which would pose a mortal danger to the rest of the world because it would be infected with the virus of Russian imperialism which of course has been a characteristic of Russian foreign policy for centuries."
- 1 A period of hostile relations between rivals where direct open warfare between them is largely undesired and avoided; especially, either the Cold War or Cold War II. uncountable
"1945, George Orwell, "You and the Atom Bomb", Tribune, 19 October 1945; reprinted in Orwell, Sonia Orwell, and Ian Angus, George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters, Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose (1946–1950), David R. Godine (2000), ISBN →ISBN, page 9, James Burnham's theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications—that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of “cold war” with its neighbours."
- 2 a state of political hostility between countries using means short of armed warfare wordnet
Etymology
Coined by American journalist Herbert Bayard Swope in 1947, in a speech he wrote for Bernard Baruch (1870–1965), an American financier and adviser to President Woodrow Wilson.
Diachronically, back-formation from Cold War: a common noun back-formed from the proper noun naming the first post–WWII instance of the concept; synchronically, cold + war.
See also for "cold war"
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