First Cold War Novel?

Through the '60s to the '90s there were tons of books focusing on NATO clashing with the USSR, but does anyone know of the first novel that depicted such a confrontation?

If you need to have NATO there explicitly, it would have to be written after April 1949, I suppose.

Without that restriction, maybe something like The third man or Nineteen eighty-four would count?

Depends on how you define "clash" and how much of a confrontation you need (and if a member country of the NATO as one of the sides counts?) :)

https://spywrite.com/2022/02/01/conspirator-by-humphrey-slater-the-first-cold-wa... has some ideas on the first spy novel of the Cold War (Atomsk is the one I know of as the first based on the histories of the genre... the article claims there is an earlier one on the UK side)

Another thought: what about The atom station by Halldór Laxness, originally published in Icelandic in 1948?

>4 thorold: While it is a Cold War novel, it does not really have anyone from one of the sides... so no clash between the sides.

Thank you all for the feedback! To clarify, I was thinking in terms of actual combat rather than just spycraft (although espionage could always be in the mix).

Sorry, I've come pretty late to this one, War--1974 by Robert B. Rigg might be in with a shout; this is an examination of the loopier military tech projects that the USA was experimenting with in 1958 when the book was written, projecting them against the scenario of an atomic/conventional war with the USSR and China (let's just say Red Hordes) in 1974.
The projects include the one man personal helicopter and troop insertion by inert ICBM, both of which were actual projects in the 1950s. The deadly earnest the book is written in only makes it all the funnier to a modern audience. In his defence Rigg was only attempting to do what other authors have done since, which is to take what is on the drawing board at the current time and extrapolate it into a real world setting. Not sure it works though :)