0 a state of extreme unfriendliness existing between countries, especially countries with opposing political systems, that expresses itself not through fighting but through political pressure and threats. The expression is usually used of the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union after the Second World War.
1 a continuing and dangerous unfriendly situation existing between countries that is expressed in political ways, often including threats of war
2 an extremely unfriendly relationship between countries, which is expressed not through fighting but through political pressure and threats. The expression usually refers to the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union after the Second World War:
And we have a cold war with only one country, and they're the only ones who'd play a deadly trick like this.
He makes his audience squirm with anxiety about how America is losing the cold war on all fronts, and makes them burn with desire to reverse this trend.
They must advance the cause of socialism while fighting a cold war against the only existing 'socialist' nation.
These differences set the stage for the transition from war to cold war in the borderlands.
In many ways, the end of the cold war has thrown some of the costs of the post-1945 peace settlement into even sharper relief.
The fierce confrontation with communism in the early cold war years played a very important role in this remarkable transformation.
The period of the cold war also showed that war inside states does not mean that outside states are not involved in some fashion.
The different national cultures of the cold war prevented more thorough and wide-ranging discussions.
