What is a cold war, what’s the definition and where does the phrase come from?
Tensions between Russia and the UK and US have escalated, with experts declaring another cold war is on its way - but what does this mean?
AS tensions continue to escalate between Russia and the UK and US, experts have feared another cold war is on its way.
But just what is a cold war, and where does this term have its roots? We explain all.
What is a cold war and where does the term originate?
A cold war is a state of conflict between two nations that does not involve direct military action.
The conflict is primarily pursued through economic and political actions, including propaganda, espionage and proxy wars, where countries at war rely on others to fight their battles.
The term cold war was rarely used before 1945, and some credit 14th century Spaniard Don Juan Manuel for first using it when referencing the conflict between Christianity and Islam.
However, critics say he used the word for tepid in Spanish, claiming the term actually originated in a mistranslation of his work in the 19th century.
George Orwell used the term in an essay at the end of World War II.
In his work "You and the Atomic Bomb", published October 19, 1945, Orwell contemplated a world living in the shadow of the threat of nuclear war, warning of a "peace that is no peace", which he called a permanent "cold war".
The term has now come to be fixed for any wars raged through indirect conflict.
The most well-known is the post-World War II geopolitical tensions between the USSR and its satellites and the United States and its western European allies.
What was ‘The Cold War’?
The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension between powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) that followed World War II.
A common timeframe acknowledged by historians ranges from 1947 and either 1989 or 1991.
Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel.
By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army.
The Americans and the British feared the permanent Soviet domination of eastern Europe and the threat of Soviet-influenced communist parties coming to power in the democracies of western Europe.
The Soviets, on the other hand, were determined to maintain control of eastern Europe in order to safeguard against any possible renewed threat from Germany, and they were intent on spreading communism worldwide, largely for ideological reasons.
The Cold War had solidified by 1947, when US aid provided under the Marshall Plan to Western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
The Cold War reached its peak between 1948 and 1953.
Throughout the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union avoided direct military confrontation in Europe and engaged in actual combat operations only to keep allies from defecting to the other side or to overthrow them after they had done so.
The Cold War began to break down in the late 1980s during the administration of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
He dismantled the totalitarian aspects of the Soviet system and began efforts to democratise the Soviet political system.
When communist regimes in the Soviet-bloc countries of Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989–90, Gorbachev acquiesced in their fall.
In late 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and 15 newly independent nations were born from its corpse, including a Russia with a democratically elected, anti-communist leader.
The Cold War had come to an end.
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What other conflicts have been called ‘Cold Wars’?
A number of global and regions tensions over the years have also been labelled cold wars.
These have taken place across the Middle East, South Asia and Eastern Asia.
In the Middle East, the term "cold war" refers to the ongoing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The conflict is waged on multiple levels over geopolitical, economic and sectarian influence in pursuit of regional dominance, or influence over neighbouring countries.
In South Asia, the term "cold war" has been in use since 2002 and refers to long-term tensions between India and Pakistan.
Relations between the two nations have been complex and largely hostile due to a number of historical and political events, including the violent partition of British India in 1947, the Kashmir conflict and the numerous military conflicts fought between the two nations.
Despite the two countries overlapping in certain demographics, languages and even shared cuisines, the relationship has been plagued by hostility and suspicion.
Since their Independence, the two countries have fought three major wars, one undeclared war and have been involved in numerous armed skirmishes and military standoffs, with the Kashmir conflict the main centre-point.