Perhaps not here or directly in Europe, but the Cold War did get very hot in a lot of other places.
Proxy wars, Sam Cummings pouring in the German War Two stuff on on side, Nicky the K pouring in the brand-new Sov stuff on the other side, Fidel sending his troops ALL over the map (friend of mine shot a few in Namibia and Angola both), Russian "advisers" everywhere, Tariq Ali sucking the bucks out of the universities here to buy Russian MGs to send to Angola, nukes sitting in Cuba, Florida with a possible 3-minute warning. I saw a whole rack of in-grease AKMs, 8 months old, that came out of Northern Ireland; they were already in a museum!
Here, during the Cuban Missile thing, our local Regiment was on 2-hours notice to pick up our tanks...... which were older than we were, 20 years older than the Sov models..... and 85 miles way.
Tense, tense times.
If you didn't live through it, you will never understand it.
"Adversaries" fits just right.