"Cold War" is a science fiction short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1956, and later anthologized in Tales from the White Hart.

Like the rest of the collection, it is a frame story set in the fictional "White Hart" pub, where Harry Purvis narrates the secondary tale.

Assuming that it is an airplane in trouble, they investigate, only to find that a Russian submarine is trying to appropriate the missile.

Originally published in the magazine Satellite Science Fiction, the piece was later published as the twelfth story in Clarke's collection Tales from the White Hart.

[1] Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale praised the collection as "as light and frothy a conglomeration of sidesplitters as it has been my good fortune to read.