| 1. | intense economic, political, military, and ideological rivalry between nations, short of military conflict; sustained hostile political policies and an atmosphere of strain between opposed countries. |
| 2. | a continuing state of resentful antagonism between two parties short of open hostility or violence. |
| 3. | (initial capital letters ) rivalry after World War II between the Soviet Union and its satellites and the democratic countries of the Western world, under the leadership of the United States. |
| cold war n.
|
A constant nonviolent state of hostility between the Soviet Union and the United States. The cold war began shortly after World War II, with the rapid extension of Soviet influence over eastern Europe and North Korea. With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the cold war ended. (See Berlin airlift, Berlin wall, and Iron Curtain.)