None of that is politics (except as part of the still distant possibility of having Pufendorfian “international politics” ultimately replacing our current still utterly Macchiavelian “Realist” “international relations”). The continuum is of various differing forms of in the use of power on the spectrum of full out hot war (threatening end of world with current technical capabilities) down through medium war where the parties are terrorized from full escalation, to cold wars of espionage, sabotage, deprivation of resources, and various forms of isolation. The term “cold war” captures a part of that spectrum.
The EU showed and still shows the possibility of actually shifting from war to politics. The UN showed the impossibility of doing that worldwide in our epoch of mankind.
All of it is, as you exactly correctly declare, on a continuum, but not between politics and war, but rather cold war with hot dollops here and there, and WAR.