Editing Military strategy (section)

===Cold War===

Soviet strategy in the Cold War was dominated by the desire to prevent, at all costs, the recurrence of an invasion of Russian soil. The Soviet Union nominally adopted a policy of [[no first use]], which in fact was a posture of launch on warning.<ref name=autogenerated1>Beatrice Heuser, "Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 70s and 80s: Findings in the East German Archives", ''Comparative Strategy'' Vol. 12 No. 4 (Oct.–Dec. 1993), pp. 437–457.</ref> Other than that, the USSR adapted to some degree to the prevailing changes in the NATO strategic policies that are divided by periods as:<br /><ref>Pupkov, et al. Weapons of anti-missile defense of Russia</ref>
* Strategy of massive retaliation (1950s) ({{langx|ru|стратегия массированного возмездия}})
* Strategy of flexible reaction (1960s) ({{langx|ru|стратегия гибкого реагирования}})
* Strategies of realistic threat and containment (1970s) ({{langx|ru|стратегия реалистического устрашения или сдерживания}})
* Strategy of direct confrontation (1980s) ({{langx|ru|стратегия прямого противоборства}}) one of the elements of which became the new highly effective high-precision targeting weapons.
* Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as "Star Wars") during its 1980s development ({{langx|ru|стратегическая оборонная инициатива&nbsp;– СОИ}}) which became a core part of the strategic doctrine based on Defense containment.

All-out nuclear World War III between NATO and the Warsaw Pact did not take place. The United States recently (April 2010) acknowledged a new approach to its nuclear policy which describes the weapons' purpose as "primarily" or "fundamentally" to deter or respond to a nuclear attack.<ref>{{cite web |title=2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Fact Sheet |url=http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/NPR%20FACT%20SHEET%20April%202010.pdf |access-date=April 13, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527200503/http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/NPR%20FACT%20SHEET%20April%202010.pdf |archive-date=May 27, 2010 |publisher=U.S. Department of Defense Office of Public Affairs}}</ref>