Renaming the Cold War

Anyone know of a more accurate name, from an American perspective, of the decades of suspension between the US and the Warsaw Pact?

The philosophy war? The public opinion war? The 41 years war? The full Madame Butterfly war - as opposed to a renaisance Italian "operetta war"?

The great neo-con deception?

The War of Resistance to American Imperialist Expansion!!

Sorry, it's just that every time I see "War of Northern Aggression" or somesuch I cry a little for the death of history.

What's wrong with the cold war? It explains what it was, a covert war between two empires for scraps of the rest of the world.

Stranger:

Sorry, it's just that every time I see "War of Northern Aggression" or somesuch I cry a little for the death of history.

OK, it's OT for this thread, but I'll bite. Why is that? Southern states seceeded, as was their right, and northern states responded by invading. As is customary, they sought an excuse by offering provocation at Fort Sumter, but there's no confusion who was the aggressor here.

--Len.

Because you are loading the name of the war with appeals to emotions. We don't call WWII The War to Repeal Nazi Oppression and Stop the Holocaust. Rational history requires objective labeling.

The Cold War is a good name that everyone understands, just like the Franco-Prussian War or the War of Spanish Succession.

I suppose then that the Revolutionary War or the War for Independance should be called the British Civil War?

No, why? It didn't take place in Britain.

What exactly is your problem with the conventional name that makes this new name necessary?

Stranger:

American Civil War, even if it is understood what war you are referring to, is not an accurate description. It was a war of secession or, for those who still believed in such things, a war between sovereign states.

Stranger:

No, why? It didn't take place in Britain.

Technically It took place in British owned colonies (owned illigitimately of course) when British subjects rebelled against  the british government (it was unlawful to do so).

There was nothing unlawful about the south seceeding. There was no stipulation in the constitution that outlined a course of action to be taken by the state in the event of secession nor was secession expressly forbidden. Since the south seceeded it was no longer under Union law and therefore was not in violation of any of the legal establishments in place. The War for Southern Independance or the War of Northern Agression didn't innitiate in the US, but rather the Confederacy. Why would it be called the American Civil War.

Stranger:

The War of Resistance to American Imperialist Expansion!!

 

 

Sorry, it's just that every time I see "War of Northern Aggression" or somesuch I cry a little for the death of history.

 

What's wrong with the cold war? It explains what it was, a covert war between two empires for scraps of the rest of the world.

Couldn't put it better myself. "Cold War" is one of the better terms I've heard so far, since I found out that my dad was in one of the "Speed Bump" units along the East/West German Border from around 1978-1980/81ish and again around 1986/87-1989. The term Cold War is usually used to imply that even though it was a timeperiod littered with aggressive action on both sides and littered with brush-fires both created and put down by both sides, it never got really "hot"...that is, the bullets really started flying and the ICBMs managed to stay in their silos.

JonBostwick:

Stranger:

American Civil War, even if it is understood what war you are referring to, is not an accurate description. It was a war of secession or, for those who still believed in such things, a war between sovereign states.

 

That is why, outside of America, we call it the War of Secession.