Military strategy
Australian: Australia's historical ties with Britain meant that with the commencement of World War II its armies were sent overseas to contribute to battles in Europe. Fear from the north was so understated that at the outbreak of open warfare with Japan, Australia itself was extremely vulnerable to invasion (possible invasion plans were considered by the Japanese high command, though there was strong opposition). Australia's policy became based entirely on domestic defense following the attacks on Pearl Harbor and British assets in the South Pacific. Defying strong British opposition, Australian Prime Minister John Curtin recalled most troops from the European conflict for the defense of the nation.
Australia's defensive doctrine saw a fierce campaign fought along the Kokoda track in New Guinea. This campaign sought to further stretch Japanese supply lines, preventing the invasion of the Australian mainland until the arrival of fresh American troops and the return of seasoned Australian soldiers from Europe. This can be seen as a variant of the war of attrition strategy, where the defender—out of necessity—had to hold the aggressor at a semi-static defensive line, rather than falling back in the face of superior numbers. This method is in stark contrast to the Russian scorched earth policy against Napoleon in 1812, where the defenders yielded home territory in favour of avoiding open battle. In both cases the lack of supplies was successful in blunting the assaults, following exhaustive defensive efforts.

Communist China's strategy: The Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong developed a military strategy called people's war. It aimed at creating and maintaining support of the local population, and draw the enemy deep into the interior where the force adopting the strategy would exhaust them through a mix of guerrilla and conventional warfare.
The strategy was first used by the Communists against the forces of the Nationalist Government led by Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War in the 1930s. During and after the arduous Long March, the Communist forces, who were dramatically reduced by physical exhaustion, disease and warfare, were in danger of destruction by the pursuing Nationalist forces. Mao then convinced other high-ranking political officers in the party to acquire the support of the local population whilst fighting their way northwards from the Nationalist forces. Shortly thereafter he formulated the concept of people's war, promising land reform programs to the local populace and execution of the local landlords in the areas the Communists control. Using this strategy not only prevented the Communist leadership from collapsing, but also raised popular support across China, which eventually allowed them to take total control over the Chinese mainland.
The people's war is not only a military strategy but also a political one. In its original formulation by Mao Zedong, people's war exploits the few advantages that a small revolutionary movement has against a government's power including a large and well-equipped army. People's war strategically avoids decisive battles, since their tiny military force would easily be routed in an all-out confrontation with the government's army. Instead, it favours a three-stage strategy of protracted warfare, engaging only in carefully chosen battles that can realistically be won. Relying on the local population and using small military units, ensures that there are few problems concerning logistics and supplies.
In stage one, the revolutionary force sets up in a remote area with mountainous or forested terrain where its enemy is weak, and attempts to establish a local stronghold known as a revolutionary base area. As it grows in power, it enters stage two, establishes other revolutionary base areas, where it may exercise governing power and gain popular support through political programmes, such as land reform. Eventually in stage three, the movement has enough strength to encircle and capture cities of increasing size, until finally it seizes power in the entire country.
Within the Chinese Red Army, later to be called as the People's Liberation Army, the concept of People's War was the basis of strategy against the Japanese and Nationalist forces, and also against a hypothetical Russian invasion of China. The concept of people's war became less important with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the increasing possibility of conflict with the United States over Taiwan.
The strategy was utilized in the early 1950s by the hastily formed People's Volunteer Army during the Korean War, to garner support from the local Korean populace to win the war by driving the United Nations forces from the peninsula. At the battles of Chongchon river valley and Lake Changjin, the army employed guerrilla tactics in full scale, following the people's war doctrine. However, as they marched towards the South under Mao's stern orders after their decisive victories in northern Korea, they were met by an indifferent and sometimes hostile Southern population who, despite intimidation, were not willing to help them. This prevented them from defeating the UN forces in Korea and, after their hard-fought victory at the Third Battle of Seoul, they were beaten in the open by UN forces in the conclusion of their Third Phase Campaign. Later on the war turned into a stalemated two-year confrontation between the opposing forces. Thus, years after the war, the Chinese government began a series of army modernization and professionalization that would radically change the concept of the strategy, and in the 1980s and 1990s the concept of people's war was changed to include more high-technology weaponry.
The people's war strategy was also employed in countries around the world such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Nepal, Philippines, the United Kingdom (where the IRA was in rebellion in Northern Ireland and applied this strategy to urban warfare) and elsewhere. The people's war in the first three countries mentioned have been spectacularly successful, marking government transitions in these countries, while elsewhere such as in Peru it has been unsuccessful. The people's war in the Philippines that was long since employed by the insurgent New People's Army, however, made the Communist insurgency there the longest in world history,. In India and Turkey there are still ongoing insurgencies where the rebels use this strategy.

Cold War: The strategy of the Cold War was that of containment, and it was a generation dominated by the threat of total world annihilation through the use of nuclear weapons. Deterrence was a part of containment via retributive intimidation from the risk of mutually assured destruction. As a consequence, it was also a war in which attacks were not exchanged between the two main rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union. Instead, the war was fought through proxies. Instead of mainly being confined to Europe or the Pacific, the entire world was the battlefield, with countries rather than armies acting as main players. The only constant rule was that troops of the Soviet Union and the United States could not overtly fight with each other. Military strategy involved bipolar powers with global actors who could strike an opponent with nationally debilitating destruction in a matter of minutes from land, air, and sea.
With the advent of weapons of mass destruction that could decide a war by themselves, strategies shifted away from a focus on the application of conventional weaponry to a greater focus on espionage and intelligence assessment, especially after the exposure of the atomic spies.
The difference between tactics, strategy and grand strategy began to melt during the Cold War as command and communication technologies improved to a greater extent, in first world armed forces. The third world armed forces controlled by the two superpowers found that grand strategy, strategy and tactics, if anything, moved further apart as the command of the armies fell under the control of super power leaders.
American cold warriors like Dean Acheson and George C. Marshall quickly recognized that the key to victory was the economic defeat of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had adopted an aggressive posture of Communist expansionism following the end of World War II, with the United States and its strong navy quickly finding that it had to aggressively defend much of the world from the Soviet Union and the spread of communism.
Strategies during the Cold War also dealt with nuclear attack and retaliation. The United States and NATO maintained a policy of limited first strike throughout the Cold War. In the event of a Soviet attack on the Western Front, resulting in a breakthrough, the United States would use tactical nuclear weapons to stop the attack. The Soviet Union would respond with an all-out nuclear attack, resulting in a similar attack from the United States, with all the consequences the exchange would entail.
By contrast, 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. Other than that, the USSR adapted to some degree to the prevailing changes in the NATO strategic policies that are divided by periods as:

Strategy of massive retaliation (1950s) (Russian: стратегия массированного возмездия)
Strategy of flexible reaction (1960s) (Russian: стратегия гибкого реагирования)
Strategies of realistic threat and containment (1970s) (Russian: стратегия реалистического устрашения или сдерживания)
Strategy of direct confrontation (1980s) (Russian: 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 (Russian: стратегическая оборонная инициатива – СОИ) which became a core part of the strategic doctrine based on Defense containment.
The 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.