n [ sing ]
the political conflict between the capitalist countries of the West (the US and western Europe) and the Communist countries of the East (the Soviet Union and eastern Europe) that began after World War II . Both sides had large military forces which were kept ready for war, and threatened each other with nuclear weapons. They also tried to find out each other’s secrets using spies. There was no actual fighting, except where the US and the Soviet Union supported different sides in conflicts such as the Korean War . The Cold War ended in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union had begun to break up, and agreements were made to reduce military forces on both sides.
See also Cuban missile crisis , North Atlantic Treaty Organization .