Let’s talk about the greatest hits of the cold war. Heck, let’s talk about the really lousy ones too. What songs do you remember that only made sense in the context of East and West eyeing each other uneasily? I’m guessing more of these are from the '80s than from any other period, but maybe yinz can prove me wrong.
The ones that come to mind immediately, for me:
Nikita - Elton John
99 Luftballons/99 Red Balloons - Nena
19 by Paul Hardcastle
Peace in Our Time by Eddie Money
Winds of Change by the Scorpions
Der Kommisar by After the Fire
Transmission by M. A little strange and probably not well known. Various samples of Radio Moscow played over a beat.
Lawyers in Love by Jackson Browne. References to the Russians escaping “while we weren’t watching them” and the USSR opening as “vacation land for lawyers in love.”
“Back In the USSR”.
[ul][li]Miss Gradenko- The Police[/li][li]I Hope the Russians Love Their Children, Too- Sting (Not sure about that title.)[/li][li]Land of Illusion- Genesis[/li][li]Every Day Is Like Sunday- Morrissey (“And a strange dust lands on your hands, and on your face…”)[/li][li]If I Had a Rocket Launcher- Bruce Cockburn (Written from the perspective of Central American insurgents.)[/li][li]Right Here, Right Now- Jesus Jones (About the fall of Communism in Europe.)[/li]1999- Prince (“Mommy…Why does everybody have a bomb?”)[/ul]
Oh yeah, and [ul][li]It’s a Mistake- Men at Work[/li][li]Games Without Frontiers- Peter Gabriel[/li][li]Exhuming McCarthy- R.E.M.[/li]Seconds- U2 (“Push the button and pull the plug…”)[/ul]
Christmas at Ground Zero by Weird Al Yankovic
Can it still be a “greatest hit” even if it’s incredibly obscure?
What’s that, you say it can?
Okay, then I nominate Five Minutes by Bootsy Collins and the Rubber Band.
For those who don’t know, it comes from an incident in which President Reagan sound-tested an open (and recording) microphone by telling a bunch of anti-Soviet jokes that culminated in “… we start bombing in five minutes”. Bootsy essentially just mixed the entire speech with a funk beat and released it as a single.
It’s one of the few pieces of 80’s music I still own. 
You can’t talk about the music of the Cold War and leave out the apocalyptic/postapocolyptic hits of the '60s!
Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
and its evil twin Dawn of Correction
Wooden Ships - Crosby Stills Nash and Young
Radio Free Europe- R.E.M.
Tom Lehrer: “So Long, Mom, I’m Off to Drop The Bomb”, “We Will All Go Together When We Go”, and “Who’s Next?”:
Pink Floyd’s The Wall–the whole thing.
Hm, I disagree with several of the choices above (e.g. the Nena song is about war in general).
Most songs on the Fischer Z album Red skies over paradise fit the bill, as well as the Dutch classic Over de Muur (across the wall) by Klein Orkest. Talking about the Vietnam war, we also have Goodnight Saigon by Billy Joel and Cambodia by Kim Wilde.
“Watching the World” by Chaka Khan and Phil Collins from the “Destiny” album. Kinda in the same vein as “Right Here, Right Now”.
Robin
[ul][li]Party at Ground Zero- Fishbone[/li][li]Still in Saigon- Charlie Daniels Band (If we’re gonna include Vietnam songs.)[/li][li]Run Through the Jungle- Credence Clearwater Revival[/li]Under Cover of the Night- Rolling Stones (Deals with the proxy wars in Latin America.)[/ul]
As does Don Henley’s All She Wants To Do Is Dance
“A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall”, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”, “Neighborhood Bully” (the later actually about the Israel-Arab conflicts but close) by Bob Dylan
“Revolution” (a critique of the New Left, not exactly Cold War but pretty close) by the Beatles
“Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones “War, children, it’s just a shot away”
“Who’ll Stop the Rain” by CCR, which I always heard as a Vietnam allegory
“London Calling”, “When Ivan Meets GI Joe”, “The Call-up”, and “Sandinista” by the Clash
Also by Billy Joel - Stalingrad
The Ramones’ “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” is sort of related.
So is “Born in the USA”, I do remember all sorts of “Born in the USSR” versions.
and one obscure one, “Remember My Name” by Toy Matinee, about Vaclav Havel.
“Two Minutes to Midnight” - Iron Maiden
“Heroes” - David Bowie (about the split of Berlin)
“Blind Curve” and “Berlin” - Marillion (also about the division of Berlin)
The Merry Minuet
by The Kingston Trio
…But we can be tranquil
And “thankfill” and proud,
For man’s been endowed
With a mushroom-shaped cloud.
And we know for certain
That some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off,
And we will all be blown away!