Cold War II
Language: English
Part of speech: name
Etymology: A numbered instance of a specific cold war after the previous one, the Cold War (1945-1991); a similar numbering happened for a specific instance of a world war after the previous one, the World War (1914-1918), which since World War II became known retronymically as World War I.
Senses: examples: text: And what are the causes of the emerging Cold War II? Comes the retort: Putin has put nuclear-capable missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania. True, but who began this escalation?
ref: 2017 January 3, Patrick J. Buchanan, “How to Avoid a New Cold War”, in The American Conservative:
text: The collateral damage flowing from the increasingly charged atmosphere of Cold War II—over issues ranging from nuclear proliferation and counterterrorism to the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria—can only damage US national security and the possibility of a more just and peaceful world.
ref: 2018 April 5, Katrina vanden Heuvel, “Why the New Cold War Is So Dangerous”, in The Nation:
text: The historians of the future may engage in a similar debate about when Cold War II started in earnest. Was it in 2014, with the unilateral Russian annexation of Crimea and the backlash this produced from the United States and its European allies? Or did Cold War II begin with the brief Russo-Georgian War of 2008?
ref: 2018 April 15, Michael Lind, “America vs. Russia and China: Welcome to Cold War II”, in The National Interest:
glosses: The ongoing tensions between the United States of America alongside its European allies and the Russian Federation since the mid-2010s and especially since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022; sometimes called the new US–Russian Cold War.
examples: text: Perhaps he will be proved right. Few critics dispute the need for some form of engagement with Beijing. The alternative is bleak: to cut off ties, possibly start Cold War II and make a lot of U.S. exporters very unhappy.
ref: , “Beijing's Secret Wish List”, in Newsweek:
text: Unfortunately, Washington seems eager to start Cold War II, with Japan again acting as America's “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in Asia.
ref: 2015 May 31, Debito Arudou, “US greenlights Japan's march back to militarism”, in The Japan Times:
text: "At the same time, I can't help but wonder if the trade war is part of a bigger impending conflict," Dalio wrote, while Nielsen headlined his weekend missive "Cold War II seems to have broken out with no letup in sight."
ref: 2018 March 26, Jed Graham, “Don't Look Now, But Trump Just Scored A Trade Win”, in Investor's Business Daily:
glosses: The ongoing tensions between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China since the mid-2010s.
glosses: The combination of the two above-named cold wars considered as one since the 2022 "no limits" partnership of Russia and China.
examples: text: A second school, common amongst liberal writers, locates the conflict at the level of policy mistakes, missed opportunities and misperceptions on both sides: in this view, the conflict was avoidable- better communication in the period after 1945 or in the late 1970S could have avoided both Cold War I and Cold War II .
ref: 1990 March, Fred Halliday, “The Ends of Cold War”, in New Left Review, volume 0, number 189:
text: On the heels of Cold War II, the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe has collapsed, the Soviet Union itself has dissolved, Germany - long the divided heart of the Cold War - has been permitted to reunite, representative government has made a large advance throughout the region, arms control has forged ahead with (by Cold War standards) dazzling speed, and strategic tensions across the length of the European continent have eased (in some cases, only to replace by long-smoldering nationalist strife).
ref: 1994, Armand Clesse, Richard Newell Cooper, Yoshikazu Sakamoto, The International Systems After the Collapse of the East-West Order, →ISBN:
text: Equally remarkable, however, is the direct parallel between Cold War II and renewed federal investment in computing.
ref: 1997, Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World, →ISBN, page 283:
glosses: The later (mostly 1970s–1980s) phase of the Cold War.
Synonyms: Cold War 2
New Cold War
Second Cold War
Related terms: Cold War
World War III