shadow war

English

Etymology

From shadow +‎ war.

Noun

shadow war (countable and uncountable, plural shadow wars)

1. A form of armed conflict, conducted secretly in the nexus between war and peace, where various actors utilise different means to achieve their goals.
   • 2024 October 28, Scott Peterson, “Israeli strikes inside Iran cross a threshold. How will Iran respond?”, in The Christian Science Monitor‎^[1]:

     The Iran-Israel conflict was once limited largely to a shadow war.

See also

• cold war
• hot war