Preemption
vs. Prevention: A Short Primer on the Bush War Doctrine
Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)
G-03-050F
April 16, 2003
"[A]s a matter of common sense and self-defense, America
will act against...emerging threats before they are fully
formed....[W]e will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary,
to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively
against...terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against
our people and our country."
National Security Strategy of the United
States September 2002
This, the so-called "Bush Doctrine" justifying the first use
of military power, sets U.S. international relations on a foundation
of permanent war. The U.S. has always reserved the right to
defend itself against palpably imminent hostile acts of other
countries by launching a preemptive attack of its own. Even
with nuclear weapons, current U.S. policy does not rule out
a first strike against a similarly armed opponent.
Properly understood, the "right" of sovereign states to launch
a preemptive strike when all other measures to dissipate the
threat of imminent military attack have failed is a form of
deterrence to war. And it is in this sense that the Charter
of the United Nations makes an exception to its fundamental
stricture (Article 2) that "Members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any state."
The "Bush Doctrine" upends the UN's recognition (Article 51)
of "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence
if an armed attack occurs" into a presumptive right of preventive,
offensive unilateral military action against
any country thought to be attempting
to acquire a warfighting capability to which Washington objects
-- usually nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons or delivery
systems such as long-range missiles. The Doctrine assumes
that any nation not aligned with the U.S. that is developing
or acquiring technology useful for these weapons intends to
attack the U.S. directly or give the weapons to "terrorist"
groups to use.
The requirement for objective evidence of an imminent attack
(e.g., troop movements or the time, place and manner of attack)
is discarded. All that is needed is a U.S. unilateral determination
that at some undefined
future time, using means that might
be acquired or developed, another country possibly
could constitute a challenge to U.S. "national interests," however
defined.
Preventive war entirely removes the traditional justification
for preemptive war: that the threat of military action is so
imminent, substantive (combining both capability and intention),
and substantial that an attack is virtually certain. In international
law, this near certainty that a significant attack is about
to happen triggers the right of self-defense proportional to
the threat posed until the threat ends or the UN Security Council
takes effective action to restore peace and security. Under
these conditions, preemptive war is legal. Preventive war never
is.
In summary, justification of preemptive
military action rests on objective realities: enemy capability,
intent, the imminence of attack. Justification of preventive
military action rests on fortune telling -- and is as prone
to substantial error.
Daniel Smith, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran,
is Senior Fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee
on National Legislation.
Reviewed:
09/06/2005
More on Iraq
|
