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[Culise]

I don't think it can be answered without something very simple: which actions?  Giving Mosaddeq the boot in Iran?  American support for the Shah's abdication and the effective surrender of power to Khomeini?  The Iran-Contra scandal?  Refusing to support Britain and France in the Suez Crisis?  Refusing to supply Israel with weapons in the 1950s?  Extending support to Israel from the late-1960s on?  Basically, there's a lot of scope for policies when you look at the entire Middle East for the entirety of the Cold War, not all of which were the product of a single, coherent policy.  Oh, a definition of the Middle East might also be helpful, as one could include gun-running to the Mujaheddin under definitions that include Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Actually, wait, no, sorry.  I misread the question as American policy; my apologies.  I suppose the question has to be revised slightly, though - which NATO policies?  NATO conducted no offensive military operations during the Cold War, regardless of its military planning and defensive wargaming (*cough* Able-Archer), and regardless how some of its constituent nations acted; the first such action was the Gulf War, where NATO forces were deployed for a few defensive operations in Turkey starting in 1991 (AWACs to Konya and a full air defense package along their southern border), but I don't think that's what you're referring to.  The first that was entered by NATO in full earnest after that was the Bosnian War, though, which is (a) not in the Middle East and (b) conclusively and decisively after the Cold War, so that's even less of a possibility. 

[ggamer]

Hmmm. Let's say, for our purposes, Pakistan is not but Afghanistan is included in the Middle East.

Allow me to elaborate. By "policies of NATO", I mean the collective actions concerning politics and economics of the big Western players in the Cold War, rather then the military actions of NATO as a whole (thank you, this is an important distinction to make). While the nitty gritty could be debated on between nations, I guess we could define their policy during the Cold War as this:

PRIMARY DIRECTIVE : Hinder communism in whatever way possible, no matter how destabilizing

SECONDARY DIRECTIVE: Protect commercial business interest whenever communism is not a danger

Actions like the Iranian revolution, Iran-Contra, Israel, etc., will almost always fall under one of these two directives.

Therefore, a more focused question to ask is:

PROTOTYPE//TRUE, MODIFY DIRECTIVES TO PROMOTE MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY//INCOME//SECURITY

(affirmative, this is not a question//inquiry. I just could not resist.)

[Loud Whispers]

Spillover from Europol thread: Russia vs Europe, how fucked is Russia?

[Sergarr]

With nukes: very

Without nukes: the conflict is so low-key it doesn't change everything.

[Phmcw]

On paper, Russia get stomped. WW2 shown that paper is weak against rock and WAR.

[Helgoland]

Spillover from Europol thread: Russia vs Europe, how fucked is Russia?

Short-term, the Baltics are overrun, and Russia makes some quick advances into Poland and various other neighbors, while Kaliningrad is absorbed by the Europeans. There's a fuckton of outrage, and partisan acitivity in the occupied territories surge to levels not seen since WWII. Once Europe gets its act together, the Russians are pushed back out of these territories, with Belarus conquered at the same time (look at the position of the Baltics). St. Petersburg is taken swiftly, and once spring rolls around German tanks are once more rolling towards Russia, the key difference being that the tanks beside them are French and English.
If Turkey joins in, Russia is even more fucked - they have a decent enough and fairly large army.

[Loud Whispers]

And I think we've learned by now not to try and invade in the winter.

Technological advances have made it so that an allied assault into Russian Winter is possible for as long as English tanks are capable of giving a European coalition warm beverages from their bivies.

[miljan]

I am pretty sure that no one thinks that russia has enough  military power to beat EU countries. The interesting thing is that EU would also not be able to beat russia if the other scenario happens where EU is invading russia, even that EU as a whole is stronger.

[Helgoland]

St. Petersburg, the second-most important industrial hub of Russia, is right behind the border. Moscow itself isn't too far away either. Most of the Russian population and industry is on this side of the Ural, which is - again - not too far away from the border (~1000km IIRC). The EU could probably invade successfully, but it would be far too costly - and the aftermath would make Iraq in 2003 look like a play-date.

[miljan]

St. Petersburg, the second-most important industrial hub of Russia, is right behind the border. Moscow itself isn't too far away either. Most of the Russian population and industry is on this side of the Ural, which is - again - not too far away from the border (~1000km IIRC). The EU could probably invade successfully, but it would be far too costly - and the aftermath would make Iraq in 2003 look like a play-date.

Nahh, russian will just move the industrial eastwards, except if you attack now as a surprise and dont give them a year or two to move it.

[mainiac]

Nahh, russian will just move the industrial eastwards, except if you attack now as a surprise and dont give them a year or two to move it.

Modern military industry is a little less mobile then it was in 1942.

[miljan]

Nahh, russian will just move the industrial eastwards, except if you attack now as a surprise and dont give them a year or two to move it.

Modern military industry is a little less mobile then it was in 1942.

Is it? I am pretty sure it is actually now faster to move it compared to 42.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Russia has a lot of means to secure air supremacy, however. Ranging from anti-air missile complexes (S-300/400/500, Pantzir, etc.) everywhere to the fighter/interceptor aircraft on par with the best Western ones.

wanna talk airfoce?

For starters Russia has no enough pilots and no enough modern aircrafts (not that MIG-35 is comparable to F-22 or F-35 or even modernized F-16)

Crap like su-27 and mig-31 is nothing but a target. Crap in what matters in modern warfare - electronics. Plus, repeating myself, Russia has no enough pilots to tackle NATO

Are you kidding? The MiG-35 is superior in performance to the F-16 in just about every way. It's faster, has a better thrust:weight ratio, has a greater rate of climb, has a greater flight ceiling, and was specifically defined to counter modern Western aircraft. The only problem is that there are only a handful of them.

Here is a huge misconception. Treating modern areal warware as WW2 one. In WW2 stuff like ceiling, rate of climb, speed mattered most. Nowadays we have a situation were all fighting goes beyond the visual range. That changes rules

To illustrate how "good" Russian aerospace industry really is. Look here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Superjet_100
Who does high tech stuff?:

Flight control systems   Liebherr Aerospace (Lindenberg im Allgäu)    Germany
System software   Thales Group    France
Cockpit systems / Auxiliary gas turbine / Avionics   Honeywell / Thales Group    USA /  France


Russia can't produce their own flight control systems for a passenger jet. Know why? Because they need to actually compete on the market, unlike MIG-35 and PAK-FA were propaganda is enough to declare that aircrafts are among the best of the world.

[Sheb]

The thing is, invading Moscow and St Peterborough would likely trigger a nuclear strike, and no one wants that. 

[Helgoland]

The thing is, invading Moscow and St Peterborough would likely trigger a nuclear strike, and no one wants that.

I disagree about 'likely': Any scenario where St. Petersburg and Moscow are invaded has Russia on the brink of total defeat anyway, and I trust the basic human decency of the politicians in charge enough that I don't believe they'd end life on this planet purely out of spite.
Doesn't mean I'd like to make that gamble, though.