Preemptive war: a prelude to global peril?
USA Today Magazine › Vol. 131 Nbr. 2696, May 2003
Linked as:
Summary
National Affairs
See the full content of this document
Extract
Preemptive war: a prelude to global peril?
IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. began a war against global terrorism. Soon thereafter, America abandoned its Cold War strategy of containment, embracing the doctrine of preemptive warfare aimed at attacking suspected aggressors before they could strike first. This, in turn, led to the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003.
The Bush Administration's doctrine of preempting terrorists and rogue states, in what is called alternatively "forward deterrence" or "anticipatory self-defense," raises anew timeless moral and legal issues about the conditions under which, and purposes for which, a just war for self-defense is permissible to counter a threat to national security. What it has advanced as a new national security strategy is nothing less than an amputation of the normative pillar on which global society has been based at least since 1928, when the Kellogg-Briand pact outlawed war as an instrument of foreign policy. This radical revision of customary international law is leading the world into uncharted waters. If it becomes permissible to attack oth...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
