Preventive War

Attacking an enemy now in order to avoid the risk of war under worsening circumstances later. A preventive war occurs when a state attacks another and claims preventive self-defense.

Preventive war and preemptive war differ in the certainty of an attack. Whereas a preemptive war concerns [Page 596]an imminent attack, preventive war takes place with no military provocation. States generally justify preventive war by claiming that the enemy may attack in the future. Therefore, a preventive strike is necessary in order to prevent a worse outcome in the future. For example, Israel launched a preventive strike against the Iraqi Osirak nuclear facility in 1981 in an attempt to prevent Iraq from developing a nuclear capability and threatening Israel at some future date. Additionally, during the Cold War, U.S. officials contemplated attacking the USSR and China before they could develop strong nuclear capabilities.

Although the U.S. National Security Strategy issued by President George W. Bush in September 2002 discussed preemptive attack, it in fact proposed a preventive doctrine. The definition of preemptive action in the document was quite broad. In the letter accompanying the document, President Bush wrote that the United States must be ready to wage war against emerging threats before they are fully formed. Terrorists and rogue states with weapons of mass destruction cannot be contained by deterrence. Because terrorists are fanatics and rogue states are willing to take what would normally be considered unacceptable risks, deterrence that is based on rational reactions does not work. Defense also may not be possible, as the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks proved. Thus, the United States must be ready to strike first.

Preventive war represents an alternative to deterrence. If a country has no confidence in deterring an adversary with its military or diplomatic might, preventive war becomes the least bad option. Harvard professor Graham Allison was quoted by David Sanger in the New York Times in 2002, describing the logic of preventive war: “I may some day have a war with you, and right now I'm strong and you're not. So I'm going to have the war now.” In fact, preventive wars typically are initiated by dominant powers. In 1912 the chief of staff of the German army, Helmut von Moltke, opposed a diplomatic solution to the Balkan crisis because he believed that Germany still had a military advantage over France and also over Russia, which was rapidly modernizing its army and could pose a future threat to Germany.

This logic is similar to the rationale behind the 2003 U.S. attack on Iraq. The Bush administration claimed that the reconstituted Iraqi nuclear program would have threatened U.S. interests in the Middle East and that Iraq would eventually attack U.S. territory. The United States also claimed that Iraq was ready to use biological and chemical weapons. On the basis of these impending threats, the United States attacked Iraq as a preemptive strike in March 2003. Following the overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, evidence showed that the Iraqi threat was less immediate than the Bush administration had claimed. However, President Bush later maintained that the war in Iraq was justified on the grounds that Saddam Hussein might have someday been able to develop nuclear weapons. Based on this justification, the invasion would constitute a preventive war. Preventive wars are based on long-term calculations about power relations and are attractive to countries that are in a dominant position and seek to stop a rising adversary.

...