Preventive war - Misplaced Pages

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Preventive war is war launched in anticipation of a future loss of security or strategic advantage. Preventive war is sharply distinct from preemptive war, or anticipatory self-defense. Preventive war is only claimed to prevent a hypothetical attack which might occur in the future; for example, a war launched to prevent an adversary acquiring more powerful weapons. In international law, preventive war has no recognized status as distinct from a war of aggression. Many, if not most wars have been characterised as "preventive" in nature, often by both sides of the conflict.

Examples

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World War II

Both Axis and Allies in the Second World War invaded neutral countries on grounds of prevention. In 1940, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway, arguing that Britain might have used them as launching points for an attack, or prevented supply of strategic materials to Germany. In 1941, the British and Soviets invaded Iran to secure a supply corridor into Russia. The Iranian Shah appealed to President Roosevelt for help, but was rebuffed on the grounds that "movements of conquest by Germany will continue and will extend beyond Europe to Asia, Africa, and even to the Americas, unless they are stopped by military force".

The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor (1941) was motivated by the knowledge that American military power was rapidly increasing, while American policy towards Japan was becoming more adversarial. America was moving battleships and strategic bombers into the Asian theatre, an action which was construed as a long-term potential threat but was not a real or anticipated attack.

1967 Arab-Israeli War

A dispute over territorial waters led Egypt to mobilize its military forces against Israel. Israel could not maintain a comparable level of mobilization due to its smaller population, and so decided to strike first. This has been described as a preemptive war, but in the absence of an imminently anticipated armed attack, more closely fits the definition of a preventive war..

2003 Iraq War

The 2003 Invasion of Iraq was justified in part as a preventive war, on the grounds that an Iraqi weapons buildup might threaten America and Britain in the future and/or possible alliances with international Islamic terrorist groups that share a common hatred of Western countries.

Views of Preventive war

Legal scholars generally agree that preventive war is not legally distinct from aggression, "the supreme crime" in international law. Commentators as diverse as Dwight Eisenhower and Noam Chomsky have argued that accepting one preventive war would open the floodgates to all preventive wars, reducing the world to "the law of the jungle". Others, especially Western neo-conservatives, have argued that preventive war is a useful and necessary tool in an age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and that international law favours order and national sovereignty over more important factors such as preventing genocide or liberating oppressed peoples.

Eisenhower on Preventive War

Up to 1953

"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. ... War settles nothing."

1954

Q. Ray L. Scherer, National Broadcasting Company: Mr. President, there seem to be increasing suggestions that we should embark on a preventive war with the Communist world, some of these suggestions by people in high places. I wonder, sir, if you would care to address yourself to that proposition.

THE PRESIDENT. "All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time, if we believe for one second that nuclear fission and fusion, that type of weapon, would be used in such a war--what is a preventive war?

I would say a preventive war, if the words mean anything, is to wage some sort of quick police action in order that you might avoid a terrific cataclysm of destruction later.

A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war.

I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."

Q. Chalmers M. Roberts, Washington Post and Times Herald: Mr. President, in answering that question about preventive war, you confined yourself to military reasons against it. Did you wish to leave the impression that that was the only basis of your opposition to the idea?

THE PRESIDENT. "Well, let me make it this way: if you remember, I believe it was Conan Doyle's White Company, there was a monk that left the church; he said there were seven reasons, and the first one was he was thrown out; they decided there was no use to recite the other six.

It seems to me that when, by definition, a term is just ridiculous in itself, there is no use in going any further.

There are all sorts of reasons, moral and political and everything else, against this theory, but it is so completely unthinkable in today's conditions that I thought it is no use to go any further."

1958

"I am really amazed now to be told by Soviet leaders, who have never even been near this country, that there are in the United States those who, in your words, "utter the dangerous call for preventive war"; and conduct "unrestrained propaganda for war." If any such persons exist in the United States, I do not know of them; nor do I know of any "imperialist ruling circles" that are supposedly eager to plunge the world into war in order to make financial gains."

The Bush doctrine, Iraq and Afghanistan

Former United States Attorney General under Lyndon Johnson, Ramsey Clark, has drawn up Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that includes the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq as "Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law" consistent with discussion of the "rationale for preventive war" above. MIT Professor Noam Chomsky argues the preventive war in Iraq is a supreme crime as defined by Justice Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials.

Preventive war has been described as an important element of the Bush Doctrine, although the U.S. government uses the term preemptive in a way which is partly consistent with international usage. It was argued that Iraqi missiles already threatened the United States, although only biological and chemical weapons were yet ready for use. Based on this justification the 2003 invasion of Iraq should have been a possible example of a preemptive war. The Iraqi missiles, while unable to target the United States directly, were in violation of the cease fire agreement following the 1991 Gulf War (see below). Their development was one of many alleged cease fire violations cited in support of resumption of hostilities and therefore do not necessarily fall under either preventive or preemptive war definitions. However, the purported threat of Saddam Hussein possibly handing off chemical or biological weapons to terrorist groups that might use them against the United States or merely evincing "nothing more than the intent and ability to develop WMD" would be an example of a reason used for a preventive war.

However, President George W. Bush has claimed, on occasion, that the invasion of Iraq was justified on the grounds that Saddam Hussein may have someday been able to develop nuclear weapons. Based on this justification, the invasion would constitute a preventive war, since there was no impending attack by Iraq. The Bush administration, however, argues that the 1991 Gulf war was never officially finished, and that the invasion was a continuation of that conflict. Of course, many modern wars are never formally declared or finished, and critics of administration policy view this as an attempt to find a legal loophole. However, a cease fire agreement was made after the 1991 Gulf War and certain stipulations were set in place as a condition of that cease fire. If the United Nations Security Council had found continued violation of those stipulations it would have provided a legal basis for resumption of hostilities. Finding none, they did not, however, as Colin Powell told the World Economic Forum, "When we feel strongly about something we will lead, even if no one is following us."

Additionally, some critics of the Bush administration argue that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was another example of preventive war. This is due to the fact that the government of Afghanistan did not actually attack the U.S. Rather, Al-Qaeda is widely believed to be responsible, and the President's policy is to attack any country which is believed to be "harboring terrorists."

Proponents of the invasion argued that the September 11 attacks constituted a sufficient reason for an attack on Afghanistan. In support of this, they assert that Afghanistan's Taliban government was assisting Al-Qaeda and this is equivalent to an act of aggression against the U.S. The intricacies of this argument hinge on one's definition of an attack or act of aggression. The Bush doctrine of preventive war still presents unresolved questions: for example, if applied universally it could mean that the United States government (via support of various groups) actively attacks other states on a regular basis, an instance of which is former Cubans in south Florida running operations against Cuba, with US support.

Alternatively, some argue that the U.S. did not actually initiate a war at all, but simply supported one side (the Afghan Northern Alliance) in a civil war. Critics, however, have responded that Afghanistan was not actually engaged in a civil war. Those, including the UN, who officially recognised the Taliban government as the legitimate government of Afghanistan are examples.

The United States position towards Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attack by Al Qaeda terrorists was that the government of Afghanistan was harboring the leader of an organization that executed attacks on them. They also asserted that the Taliban, as the current government of Afghanistan, did not prevent and continued to provide the terrorist organization with the freedom to run multiple camps to train more terrorists who would then be sent to attack the United States. Considering Osama Bin Laden's declaration of war against the United States, the Bush administration considered this support a hostile act in support of Al-Qaeda. From this point of view the war in Afghanistan was neither preventive nor preemptive.

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