Cold peace

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A cold peace is a state of relative peace between two countries that is marked by the enforcement of a peace treaty ending the state of war while the government or populace of at least one of the parties to the treaty continues to treat the treaty with vocal disgust domestically.^[1]

It is contrasted against a cold war in which at least two states are not openly pursuing a state of war against each other but openly or covertly support conflicts between each other's client states or allies. Cold peace, while marked by similar levels of mistrust and antagonistic domestic policy between the two governments and populations, do not result in proxy wars, formal incursions, or similar conflicts.

Examples[]

Egypt and Israel[]

The Camp David Accords, the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty and the aftermath of relations between Israel and Egypt are considered a modern example of a cold peace.^[2] After having engaged each other in five prior wars, the populations had become weary of the loss of life, and the negotiation of the accords and the treaty were considered a high point of the Middle Eastern peace process. However, Egyptian popular support for the treaty plummeted after the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and perception of the treaty has not recovered in the Egyptian populace ever since.

The drop in support for the treaty was not entirely reflected in Egyptian government policy, as from 1981 to his 2011 ouster, Anwar Sadat's successor, Hosni Mubarak continued to retain the treaty's terms but also played public sentiment against Israelis and Jews through state media. After Mubarak's ouster and the installation of a military junta in power until the inauguration of the next civilian government, protesters voiced strong opposition against the 1979 treaty with Israel and the Israeli response to Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and military personnel resulted in the withdrawal of the Egyptian ambassador over the deaths of five Egyptian security personnel in the Sinai, ostensibly by Palestinian militants or Israeli military personnel engaged in a retaliatory air raid on Gaza.

The lack of Egyptian support for the 1979 treaty is caused in part by pan-ethnic and religious fundamentalist sympathies in Egypt for Palestinian and other Arab Muslim militants against Israel, a Jewish-majority state currently in conflict over the territory of Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as by Egyptian nationalist sentiment against Israel dating back to before Israel's independence in 1948. Furthermore, most of the letter of both the accords and the treaty has been maintained, but the spirit of normalization that had been intended are perceived as not having been fulfilled.

India and Pakistan[]

A ceasefire signed between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has prevented open and armed hostilities from developing between the two countries, but numerous incidents involving Pakistani terrorists, such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the Pakistan-alleged Indian involvement in Baluchistan have often strained both diplomatic relations and popular support for peace between the nuclear powers.^[3]

References[]