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cold war
a state of political hostility and military tension between two countries or power blocs, involving propaganda, subversion, threats, economic sanctions, and other measures short of open warfare, esp that between the American and Soviet blocs after World War II (the Cold War)
www.coldwar.org
www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
cold war
the state of hostility and political competition which existed between the two superpowers, the US and USSR, in the post-World War II period, which involved strategies of political subversion, spying, the promotion of regional wars between smaller powers, etc, but which stopped short of all-out war. Some commentators regard the period of the cold war as covering only the years of greatest mutual suspicion and hostility – 1945-55. For others, the era of cold war only ended with the advent of GLASNOST and PERESTROIKA, and the break-up of the Eastern military and economic bloc in 1989 and 1990. See also NUCLEAR DETERRENCE, BALANCE OF POWER.Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000