- Cold peace
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A cold peace is a state of relative peace between two countries which 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 domestically treat the treaty with vocal disgust.
It is contrasted against a cold war, in which at least two states which are not openly pursuing a state of war against each other, 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.
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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.[1] 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 Treaty were considered a high point of the Middle East Peace Process. However, Egyptian popular support for the treaty plummeted following 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.
This drop in support for the treaty was not entirely reflected in Egyptian government policy, as from 1981 until his 2011 ouster, Sadat's successor Hosni Mubarak continued to retain the treaty's terms, while also playing public sentiment against Israelis and Jews through state media. Following Mubarak's ouster and the installation of a military junta in power until 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 5 Egyptian security personnel in the Sinai, ostensibly by either Palestinian militants or Israeli military personnel engaged in a retaliatory air raid on Gaza.
The lack of Egyptian support for the 1979 treaty is due in part to panethnic and religious fundamentalist sympathies in Egypt for Palestinian and other Arab Muslim militancies against Israel, a Jewish-majority state currently in conflict over the territory of Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as Egyptian nationalist sentiment against Israel dating back to before Israel's independence in 1948. Furthermore, while most of the letter of both the Accords and the treaty has been maintained, the spirit of normalization which had been intended are perceived as not having been fulfilled.
India and Pakistan
A ceasefire signed between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has kept open hostilities from developing between the two countries, but numerous incidents involving Pakistani nationals, such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks, have often strained both diplomatic relations and popular support for peace between the two nuclear powers.[2]
References
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