Preemptive war

Preemptive war has been defined as a "military action undertaken absent an imminent threat or ongoing attack by an aggressor ... a decision to go to war without clear and convincing evidence of the need for us to defend ourselves against an imminent attack."[1]

Quotable Quotes

Preemptive war "punishes the defenseless not for what they have done or are doing but for what they might have done or could do." -- Eduardo Galeano, PaxHumana, September 2003.

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"Described as "preventive defense" or "extended deterrence" by its supporters--but decried as "a new form of gunboat diplomacy" by its detractors--a new program called the "Counterproliferation Initiative" [Presidential Decision Directive PDD/NSC 18] was unveiled in December 1993 by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin.

"There was considerable controversy over what "counterproliferation" meant. But it was widely interpreted as indicating that the United States--having recently demonstrated overwhelming military superiority in the Gulf War--would now flex its muscles even further, looking into the ways and means of preemptively striking regional troublemakers or would-be attackers.

"Although there was talk of building conventional weapons capable of destroying deeply buried targets like command centers (Aspin said both new strategies and new military capabilities were needed), the initiative envisioned the use of U.S. nuclear weapons to defeat chemical or biological weapons. The idea, simply, was to "locate, neutralize, or destroy" others' weapons of mass destruction before they could be used. For the first time, the United States openly added targets in the Third World to its nuclear-weapons targeting plan.

"Now [April 2001], after eight years of reality, the initiative has morphed into something much less than promised. Author Henry Sokolski describes the process.

"The Fate of President Bill Clinton's "Counterproliferation Initiative" was tethered to its strategic assumptions. An initial interest in devising plans for preemptive strikes against foreign proliferation activities simply ignored the American culture's bias against launching Pearl Harbor-like attacks. More important, the initiative at first presumed that some military-technical means could neutralize proliferation problems. And that, in fact, turned out to be inherently difficult, if not impossible."

Source: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, March/April 2001.

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Other Related SourceWatch Resources

• Bush doctrine
• civil liberties
• Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996
• Defense Science Board
• "forward strategy of freedom"
• Homeland defense
• Homeland security
• Iraqi Civil Defense Corps
• National Security Strategy of September 2002
• National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
• neoconservative
• Patriot Act I
• peacekeeping
• Post-war Iraq/NATO
• Proactive Preemptive Operations Group
• Project for the New American Century
• Stanley Foundation's Independent Task Force on US Strategies for National Security
• U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century / Hart-Rudman Commission
• war on freedom
• war on terrorism
• weapons of mass destruction

External Links

Preemptive War Against Iraq

• Paul W. Schroeder, Iraq: The Case Against Preemptive War. The administration's claim of a right to overthrow regimes it considers hostile is extraordinary - and one the world will soon find intolerable, The American Conservative, no date.
• Alan Bock, [Preventive or Preemptive War?], Eye on the Empire, September 10, 2002.
• William Galston, Perils of Preemptive War. Why America's place in the world will shift -- for the worse -- if we attack Iraq, The American Prospect, September 23, 2002.
• Stephen Murdock, Preemptive War: Is It Legal?, DCBar, January 2003.
• Todd Gitlin, America's Age of Empire: The Bush Doctrine, MotherJones, January/February 2003.
• Michael E. Salla, An Exopolitical Perspective on the Preemptive War against Iraq, Exopolitics, February 3, 2003.
• Eliot Katz, To Declare Pre-emptive War is to Declare a Bankruptcy of the Imagination, CounterPunch, February 28, 2003.
• Robert Schneer, Preemptive war crimes. Driven by a coterie of neoconservative ideologues -- and the accidental president in their sway -- we are hours away from becoming international outlaws, Salon.com, March 12, 2003.
• Jeffrey Donovan,Iraq: 'Preemptive' Or Otherwise, U.S. Interventionism Has A Long History, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 14, 2003.
• Steven R. Weisman, Doctrine of preemptive war has its roots in early 1990s, International Herald Tribune, March 24, 2003.
• Bob Zimmerman, The truth behind the American invasion of Iraq: The Bush administration's evolving global nightmare, impeach-bush-now.org, April 7, 2003: "When did 'democracy' become an American export; a commodity installed wherever we see fit by means of overwhelming force?"
• Howard Dean, Bush: It's Not Just His Doctrine That's Wrong, CommonDreams, April 17, 2003.
• Joel S. Beinin, Ivan Eland, and Edward A. Olsen, Preemptive War Strategy: A New U.S. Empire? (Transcript), Independent Institute, June 25, 2003.
• Ulrich Arnswald, Preventive War or Preemptive War, IndyMedia, September 3, 2003.
• Stan Crock, Preemptive War Is the Wrong Weapon, BusinessWeek Online, October 22, 2003: "the electronic newsletter sent out by Chuck Spinney, a retired Pentagon analyst ... starts out with a quote from the late journalist H. L. Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and hence clamorous to be led to safety] by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Future Preemptive Actions

• David Morgan, Pentagon Weighs Contentious Peacekeeping Plans, Reuters, December 5, 2003.