Mueller et al., Striking First: Preemptive and
Preventive Attack in U.S.
[9]
Preventive attack and preventive war designate proactive measures taken by a threatened nation to eliminate an anticipated threat.
Even a successful
preventive attack would at most set back Iran's nuclear program a few years.
Note that this analysis, although it discusses the war power in terms of a
preventive attack, still is focused on where the war power lies, that is, whether the President has the power to act without Congress.
The moral questions he raises are, and should be, crucial to policy makers, but his framework is more suitable as an after-action analysis than as a guide to
preventive attack.
The purpose of this RAND study is to answer three central questions that arise in light of this doctrinal change: 1) under what conditions is preemptive or
preventive attack worth considering or pursuing as a response to perceived security threats?
Striking first; preemptive and
preventive attack in U.S.
Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Historical Analysis, Lyle J.
A preventive use of military force, often referred to as a preventive intervention, is force designed to prevent an expected aggression--that is, an aggression expected to come sometime in the future from the target of the
preventive attack. (3) I will argue that any plausible moral justification for the preventive use of military force must show how the state that is the target of such an attack could be morally liable for attack when the aggression said to justify the attack is expected rather than actual.
The United States' insistence on carrying out a
preventive attack on Iraq in the face of opposition from the U.N.
In September 2002, Bush asserted that as terrorist organizations were different from nation-states, "traditional concepts of deterrence will not work." Hence, he formally regarded
preventive attack as self-defense in dealing with terrorists.
In the long run, though, the
preventive attack strengthened Saddam's grip on power at home and animated his military ambitions to try harder--in the name of defense.
For the United States, with military might second to none, preemptive,
preventive attack may be a convenient rationale.
"Even with a victory, we believe that the medical, economic, environmental, moral, spiritual, political and legal consequences of an American
preventive attack on Iraq would undermine, not protect, US security and standing in the world."
