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New Cold War

New Cold War (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Per WP:NOTCRYSTAL and Misplaced Pages:Avoid neologisms. This article is doing a disservice to the history of the 20th Century. Just because some TV pundits and journalists are trowing this expression around, this article is certifying that a New Cold War exists between Russia and USA. This term is being used because it is catchy but it is still a undefined and unrecognized neologism.

To call the US-Russia war of words over the South Ossetian conflict as a full blown Cold War is premature at best, Misplaced Pages is not a WP:NOTCRYSTAL. This article suffers from the same problem as the Second dot-com bubble. Such a serious conflict should be unquestionable, an unanimity among historians and clearly defined. ⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 02:07, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Strong keep. The article is approaching a dozen verifiable and reliable sources (and could easily hold many more) defining the term and addressing the topic, none of which involve television pundits as far as I know. At least two published books carry the same name and discuss the topic. To address your "neologism" concern and concerns of recentism, please define what you personally consider to be "new." Take a look at a Google News Archive search for the term. Prominent coverage of the topic goes back to at least 2003, with a number of notable, verifiable, reliable sourced articles from 1999 and earlier, as well. As to your personal point of view on the topic, it's not a topic for discussion here. And this isn't the particular place for you to bring up any problems you may have with Second dot-com bubble.   user:j    (aka justen)   02:28, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Well referenced and references come from three nations' news organizations. Problems brought up such as referencing issues have been handled swiftly. Could be a great article if given a chance. LA (T) @ 03:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete not notable neologism almost exclusively referenced from recent media sources. 04:20, 18 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Annette46 (talk • contribs)
Strong Delete "New Cold War" means too many different things to different people. A strong notable contender for this article would be the book "New Cold War" publ 1970 auth "Edward Crankshaw" (many many google hits, its even on googlebooks) which speaks of a "new" cold war between Moscow and Pekin. I just altered my "vote" to Strong Delete Annette46 (talk) 17:06, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete The neologism does not seem to be notable. However the topic of Russian-American relations in the 21st Century is, and the expression could be mentioned there. (p.s. "World War Four" gets some use too.)Steve Dufour (talk) 05:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep I've seen the term "new cold war" or "revived cold war" in an uncountable number of both western and English-Russian media, as well as on political talk shows etc.. It's well sourced and notable, it should stay. LokiiT (talk) 09:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. It is clear that, despite a considerable cooling off in international politics over the course of the 90s, the trend has been reversed and a New Cold War is very much alive and well. While the article goes a bit far in suggesting the SCO and CSTO are the red to NATO's blue, there is notable coverage of the "New Cold War". Do a google search. 62.72.110.11 (talk) 13:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - You'd have to have had your head in a bucket not to notice the international tension in the past fortnight. But that's not the point. The point is whether there are sufficient reliable sources to suggest that the term 'New Cold War' is an accepted description of that situation. I don't think so, personally. Not that long ago, most usage of the term related to relations between China and various other nations. I'm just not sure that, as presented, the term is notable enough. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:31, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - such things as "cold war" are the terms used by historians to label roughly some time periods on the grounds of a consensus among the academicians, usually many years after the period has started. Mass-media labeling does not apply. --CopperKettle (talk) 15:02, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Let's compare:
  • Cold War - Soviet Union by force changes the regimes on the occupied territories to a communist ones. Now: Russia has market economy and Russian forces stationed in Georgia in the days of the Rose Revolution did nothing to prevent the power change.
  • Cold War - Soviet Block citizens are prohibited from leaving the Soviet sphere of influence. Now: Russia witnessed a huge surge in the international tourism of its citizens.
  • Cold War - wars-by-proxy in Korea and Vietnam, with each side trying to drastically change the economic and social ways of the country. Now: no radical changes, no ideological fight. --CopperKettle (talk) 15:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Transwiki and delete This is (as, to its credit, the article says) "term used to describe the perceived..." etc. It belongs on Wiktionary, not here, until it either acquires an actual (non-WP:CRYSTAL) subject, or at a minimum a recognized movement distinct from neoconservatism. The only substance here is two books with this title, heirs to a long-standing tradition of political prophecy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep It's clearly been called a New Cold War before this, which suggest the article should be redone and possibly modified to include other uses such as that in relation to China or Iran. All in the term does have a lot of usage in relation to Russia, seemingly more than in relation to other countries, and so there is very good reason for keeping it. None of the Misplaced Pages policies pointed out have any relevance here. This isn't making a prediction of the future and it's not really a neologism. In general this article meets all the needed requirements for an article and I expect, even without consideration of historical mentions of a New Cold War, the current situation will be increasingly called a New Cold War, even if I personally disagree with that characterization. Even if this is later given some different name the fact this term has been so widely used to describe the existing state of affairs is of notable importance to have an article on.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 20:27, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete. Neologism. And it's been used in multiple other instances, such as to describe the rise of religious nationalism. A wikipedia article about the phrase "new cold war" would have to include multiple instances of its usage, not just the one described here. Besides, this is mostly a WP:SYN violation. csloat (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Copied from talk page per comments there: Just looking at google books, I find the following titles:
Those are just books with "New Cold War" in the title. There are hundreds of scholarly articles and books using this phrase going back to the 1970s, and startlingly few of them use the phrase the way it is used in this article. So those advocating "keep" must indicate if they are willing to support an article with radically different content (all the stuff about Georgia shortened to a single paragraph, and all these other uses highlighted as well), or whether they wish to merge whatever content is here into South Ossetian war. csloat (talk) 04:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete as ill-defined neologism. I actually own both the Mackinnon and Lucas books and while they have the same title they are about very different subjects. Mackinnon's book is about the color revolutions (he wanted to name it "Revolution Inc" but was shot down by his publisher), while Lucas is an "old" Cold War theoretician who never stopped thinking of Russia as an evil empire. And while both books discuss East-West energy politics (and the current conflict with Ossetia also involves East-West energy politics), THAT subject could just as easily fall under the neologism of "new great game" -- ~~ Katsam (talk) 22:46, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete On above grounds. such a war does not exist, the map is made of Bs alliances with Nato being the only one that truely is realistic. When such a thing as a NCW start up, make the article, until then, its speculation and crystaling. --Jakezing (talk) 00:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Note: Discussion up to this point in the process has been moved to the talk page for this nomination. Please consider consulting and continuing lengthy discussion there.   user:j    (aka justen)   03:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Fortunately, most, but not all, of the discussion has been restored. The closing admin should read it in full; j has pruned a substantial amount of discussion adverse to his own position. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
I cannot more strongly disagree with your statement. I pruned nothing. I moved the entirety of the discussion leading up to the timestamp above to the talk page. The vast majority of that discussion were my own responses to !votes. Discussion has continued there since on other matters. If you feel I have, in any way refactored this discussion to my own benefit, please correct.   user:j    (aka justen)   16:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
A response to this message to j's talk page. I find it very difficult to consider this massive removal as compatible with good faith; but if it is restored, I will attempt to find some way to do so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. The Cat is out of the Bag already with 507,000 Results for "New Cold War" in Google search. I don't see why we shouldn't have a piece about such phenomenon in Misplaced Pages than. Besides, the concept of Cold War is not a neologism by itself, so adding a new qualifier as per media reports doesn't make for a whole lot of difference. User:J makes a few other, similarly good points in this discussion (see above). --Poeticbent talk 02:55, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: the fact that there are half a million hits only goes to prove the point -- most of those hits do not refer to the current crisis and in fact refer to many different things. So your vote, based on your rationale, should be "delete" or "merge" with other articles about other "new cold wars." csloat (talk) 03:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Once again an AfD is being flooded with ridiculous delete arguments. There is no crystal-balling in the article and the subject is not speculative or predictive. It's simply noting an idea which is being discussed with increasing frequency in relation to U.S.-Russian relations. Again this satisfies all the necessary criteria for inclusion as an article and does not violate any Misplaced Pages policy. This is for all intents and purposes an article in need of improvement, not deleting.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Withdraw AfD The evidence presented by csloat proves that this term is plenty notable enough for an article, and should be expanded to include all usages that the term has enjoyed in the past few days. As I state on the talk page, deletion is clearly not the answer. This AfD should be withdrawn, and collaboration should take place on the talk page to expand this article fully. GlassCobra 06:22, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
I would be more than willing to work with other editors to expand the article to recognize all verifiably notable uses of the term, and the research that User:Commodore Sloat has brought up will be extremely helpful to that end.   user:j    (aka justen)   06:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
You guys don't get it, do you? First, you can't withdraw an AfD someone else started. Second, the fat that there are so many different and totally incompatible uses for this neologism shows it is not notable as used in this article. If you want to have a short article stating that "new cold war" is a neologism that has occasionally been used for topics as diverse as the sino-soviet split, the sino-US tensions, American imperial ambitions in indochina, US intervention in central America, and religious nationalism in Sri Lanka, then perhaps that would be fine but most of the stuff here would be deleted except for a sentence or two about its current use with regard to Georgia. And then we would AfD it as too vague and non-notable for Misplaced Pages. Better to kill it off now. csloat (talk) 08:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Wow - GlassCobra, what on earth makes you think you can close someone else's AfD? I propose, though, in light of Commodore Sloat's excellent compilation of sources, that there's some argument for replacing the page with a detailed disambiguation page, pointing people to the various conflicts which this term has been applied to. AlexTiefling (talk) 08:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
A good idea, although most of the links from it may be links to sections of articles, rather than whole ones. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. Having an article on something is not equivalent to asserting its existence (we have articles on unicorns, Santa and so on), so most of the reasons given in the nomination are invalid.--Kotniski (talk) 09:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
The preceding comment was moved from above by the nominator.   user:j    (aka justen)   15:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Please take a look at WP:NEO. The two key reasons that guideline (not policy) provides for avoiding articles on neologisms are to avoid "articles simply attempting to define a neologism" and to avoid non-reliable, non-verifiable original research. Respectfully, I think this article goes further than merely sourcing a definition for the term, and I believe there is a significant amount of reliable, verifiable research that address the second concern. Just because you believe a term is a neologism doesn't mean it should be deleted; WP:NEO outlines two key specific reasons for deletion, and New Cold War is not failing under either.   user:j    (aka justen)   12:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Delete - Some more research would suggest that it's not just simply neologism as I thought, but my opinion that this term is merely used by media pundits to sell books stands. Many books use the term, but nearly none of them use it the same way, because it's just publicity. I wouldn't be adverse to some information to be merged into other articles, however. I just disagree that this term is notable enough for inclusion. So, I'm changing my reason, but keeping my original vote.--  Darth Mike  (Talk • Contribs) 22:18, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete, this article is an aggregation of news sources about a specific conflict, not a generalized discussion of a larger competition between powers. There isn't a "new cold war" as such, in spite of the media's attempts to define it as such. I agree that academics should be the ones to define "New Cold War" and not media sources, since the media's focus is readership, catchy phrases, clever headlines and the like. Academics have less to gain through such tactics, and that isn't their primary goal anyway. Also, the players in the conflict should have some influence in what the conflict is called, as they did in the Cold War. Hires an editor (talk) 15:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Can you provide some policy supporting your belief that Misplaced Pages should place greater value on sources from historians and lesser value on sources from the media? If it's notable, verifiable, and cites reliable sources, our job isn't to determine the accuracy of the assertions from those sources.   user:j    (aka justen)   15:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
WP:Verifiability has a novel phrasing: In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. But the intent remains: journals and university presses are more reliable than textbooks, which are more reliable than other books, which are more reliable than newspapers. As WP:V goes on to explain, As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is. Op-ed columns score low on the rule of thumb, daily newspaper reporting (by the constraints under which it exists) not much higher. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
You are right. The New Cold War article, a really serious dangerous conflict were it true, is based entirely on "daily newspaper reporting", we basically invented this new conflict. Nowhere but in Misplaced Pages is this conflict official, defined and recognized.
⇨ EconomistBR ⇦19:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


  • Comment. While people might not agree with the content of the article, the concept of a New Cold War is widely documented. Concerns are and have been expressed over what could be construed as an existing, impending or inevitable "New Cold War". Misplaced Pages has articles on issues far more trivial and nonsensical than this one. Like the Hampster Dance for example. "Hampster Dance" gets 78,900 hits on google, and no coverage by peer reviewed sources, while "New Cold War" gets 492,000 hits, including a variety of newspaper and journal articles, books, and an article in Time magazine on how to avoid one. The fact that it is being talked about (especially in Time) surely is worthy of some coverage.
It's not widely documented at all, this war only exists in Misplaced Pages. No history book will mention it. And that's the big problem, we are portraing this "New Cold War" as a certified historical fact, comparable to the first Cold War.
⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ 13:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
You guys mostly argue validity of the term (the TITLE of the article), not the SUBJECT of the article, which is thoroughly notable. The proper place to do it is RM though, not AfD. See Talk:New_Cold_War#Requested_move_proposals greg park avenue (talk) 14:29, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
The article consists of a summary of some speculative journalism on the 2008 South Ossetia war and a single paragraph on two books, which have little to do with it and (apparently) nothing much to do with each other. If the subject is not the phrase, in which case the article belongs on Wiktionary, what is it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:17, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
This article isn't representing it as a historical fact. The dispute is real, no doubt about that, and the article is clearly referring to more than the Russia-Georgia conflict. It references other major disputes like the missile defense system, Ukraine, the expulsion of foreign businesses, in addition to the situation in Georgia. Many articles and books are calling this state of affairs between Russia and the U.S. as a New Cold War with countless more suggesting one is on the way. This is clearly a notable enough topic to have an article on it. If anything your arguments suggest there should be tweaking of the article, not outright deletion. You're focusing a lot on the title and some details of the article, ignoring everything else.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:26, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Not a neologism; it, along with "neo-Cold War" has been in wide international relations scholarly literature for many years. Also, Google currently reports 522,000 hits for "new Cold War". The content of the article as it currently stands may or may not be bad, but that is irrelevant — if the current content is bad, the solution is a rewrite, not a deletion. Deletion is for cases where the topic is inherently non-encyclopedic; in this case, the topic itself is encyclopedic; it is just the current presentation that is questionable, but that is what is great about Misplaced Pages: presentation can be edited/fixed/improved. Yes, there are many sharply differing scholarly perspectives on what "new Cold War" means — but that applies to lots of terms; Misplaced Pages addresses this by addressing many perspectives, per the NPOV policy ("democracy" obviously means something very different to, for instance, the governments of the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but that doesn't mean Misplaced Pages doesn't have an article on the term "democracy"), so the fact that there is scholarly disagreement about what "new Cold War" means is not in itself a reason to delete the article. —Lowellian (reply) 04:26, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment The claim that it is a concept in international relations scholarly literature is completely false. Please cite a single peer-reviewed study of the concept that treats it as an actual concept (and not as a sensational neologism). The half million google hits are talking about half million different things as I have noted above; that only goes to further establish that there is no real referent to this term. csloat (talk) 05:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, merge and then delete both. csloat (talk) 05:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment I thought anon ips were not allowed to participate in AfDs? As well as any account that has not been used for a certain number of edits? csloat (talk) 11:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
It's not an anon; it was User:Kostan1; he or she just didn't sign his or her username. —Lowellian (reply) 19:24, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - Condoleeza Rice dismisses claims of a new cold war - May 2007 - "New Cold War", therefore, is not a term exclusively pertaining to the current Georgian Conflict. Also, that vote wasn't me. So I removed the tag (I can spell). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.72.110.11 (talk) 12:15, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per CopperKettle and csloat. — eon, 18:03, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. A notable and sourced subject, as clear from the wide coverage in literature (see links by csloat above). If it has several slightly different meanings, this should be simply explained in the article.Biophys (talk) 20:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment The several meanings are vastly different. They disagree about the countries involved to the point that no single country is involved in all of the alleged "new cold wars". There is no way to write a single coherent article about all the different meanings. The suggestion to make this a dab page, pointing in some cases to sections of longer articles, has merit. Robert A.West (Talk) 20:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - Sourced and notable. smooth007 (talk) 20:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I modified the intro of the article to provide a look at how I think this article should be constructed. I believe deletion is an overreaction and simple editing will suffice. The talk of a new cold war, second cold war, or cold war II is prevalent enough to have an article on it. However, it should also take note of the other uses. As the most significant usage relates to Russia and China with references to other minor or less associated with the term, the intro mentions only Russia and China, but acknowledges some variations on the concept. I think this article should mention some of the thoughts on a cold war between the U.S. and China, but deal mostly with what it is more often used for, the situation between the U.S. and Russia. It is a topic of sufficient scholarly and political interest to have an article, but with some of the changes I've mentioned.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:20, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
comment: a good attempt but not good enough to save this article imho... I think if we do wind up having to keep it we need to look at a disambiguation page like that suggested by AlexTiefling above. csloat (talk) 02:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, I support all three proposals as a form of compromise:
  1. -AlexTiefling's proposal to make New Cold War a disambiguation page.
  2. -greg park avenue's proposal to move the page to a less controversial title.
  3. -Septentrionalis' proposal to Transwiki the article.
I wished other editors opined on them.
⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ 13:49, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
O'K. The subject is notable enough to be described in several articles linked from the proposed disambig. page. Thus, the deletion is out of question. So, let's simply keep this article and discuss what exactly new pages on the subject should be created, including the disambig. one. Perhaps this article should be renamed, but this is unrelated to the AfD procedure.Biophys (talk) 14:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
"This subject" doesn't exist. There are multiple subjects, and we already have articles about those subjects all over wikipedia. I'm not opposed to a disambiguation page with this title, but there are no "new pages" that need to be created here. csloat (talk) 14:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
@Biophys
This is ridiculous, why do some people see a compromise offer as a sign of weakness? I am open for compromises because I am flexible not because I changed my views.
If the offer of compromise continues to be seen as a sign of weakness I will withdraw it, wait this Russia-US crisis die down and renominate the New Cold War article for deletion.
This AfD is shaping up to be a "no-consensus", but it would be a mistake if the keepers see that result as a victory, that's why I advise the keepers to look for a compromise and adress the concerns of csloat, Septentrionalis, Robert A.West and others.
⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ 14:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
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