Table of Contents
Pop Quiz!
Fast Facts
Top Questions
Quizzes
Cold War
international politics
Feedback
Thank you for your feedback
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
External Websites
Britannica Websites
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
- Date:
- 1947 - 1962
- Participants:
- North Atlantic Treaty Organization Soviet Union United States Warsaw Treaty Organization
- Context:
- international relations
Recent News
May 24, 2023, 12:32 AM ET (AP)
Russia extends arrest of US journalist Evan Gershkovich by 3 months
May 16, 2023, 10:10 AM ET (AP)
Russian Duma votes to scrap Cold War armed forces deal
Top Questions
What was the Cold War?
How did the Cold War end?
Why was the Cuban missile crisis such an important event in the Cold War?
Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” It was first used in ...(100 of 1074 words)