"Count Bush’s Doctrine of Pre-emption as a Casualty of the Iraq
War,” declared a recent headline in the Los Angeles Times.
The Times reported that, while the ouster of Saddam Hussein
initially stoked public enthusiasm for preventive war, political
support was blown apart by America’s failure to find banned
weapons, a bloody postwar occupation, and massive cost.
Pre-emption is not necessarily dead, said the newspaper, but the
public won’t go for another “regime change” war anytime
soon.
If the overall concept of pre-emption acquires too negative an
image, the US could lose a potentially valuable tool in the war
on terror.
No one doubts that fanatical terrorists are seeking horror weapons
to use against us. The leaders of al Qaeda openly declare their
determination to inflict mass casualties and economic devastation
with nukes, germs, and poisons.
Rogue states are possible sources of such weapons. The need to
ward off apocalyptic attacks—especially a nuclear one—may
force Washington to disarm more of these states. Faced with a mortal
threat, the US must have the will to strike first and hard.
In 2002, the Air Force Association stated, “We agree fully
with the policy ... that we will hold open the option for pre-emptive
action if that is needed in order to forestall destructive acts
against us.” AFA recently noted the key role of airpower. (AFA’s
Statement of Policy begins on p. 94 and is posted at www.afa.org.)
All US presidents have reserved a right to pre-empt an imminent
threat to national security. George W. Bush—spurred by the
Sept. 11 attacks—openly codified this view. In his 2002 “National
Security Strategy of the United States of America,” Bush asserted
a right to disarm any nation whose weapons of mass destruction directly
threaten us or could be given to terrorists.
It is worth noting that Sen. John Kerry, in the presidential campaign,
also claimed “the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to
protect the United States of America.”
A key point, however, is that Bush’s stance went beyond traditional
“anticipatory self-defense.” Pre-emption, he noted, need
not be reserved for an urgent threat (such as an imminent missile
attack). It could also be used against a regime to prevent a “gathering”
danger from ever materializing.
Bush reasoned that, if a suspect state never acquired terror weapons,
it could never supply them to terrorists. Conversely, once it had
them, it would be too late to prevent their spread.
Critics argue that pre-emption requires US leaders to have near-perfect
threat intelligence, a standard Washington will never be able to
approach.
These opponents of preventive war cite Iraq as Exhibit A for their
case. Under the circumstances that existed in 2003, they say, the
US had no business taking the risk of going to war.
The fact that Iraq possessed no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction
reflects poorly on the world’s major intelligence services,
all of whom said they existed. However, it didn’t necessarily
nullify Bush’s decision to go to war, given the data with which
the US had to work.
It won’t be the last time a president confronts the need to
make a high-stakes decision on the basis of sketchy knowledge.
Bush and Kerry agreed that the principal danger to the nation was
nuclear proliferation. The nightmare is that terrorists will get
their hands on a nuclear weapon, smuggle it into New York or some
other major city, and detonate it. That kind of nuclear attack could
instantly cause 500,000 deaths.
Who might supply the weapons for such an “American Hiroshima”?
At present, worried attention has begun to focus on Iran, the world’s
No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. Tehran is thought to be within
a few years of producing an indigenous bomb.
Iranian nukes, if built, will rest in the hands of fanatical Islamic
mullahs who are hostile to America and who are on close personal
terms with some of the world’s most cold-blooded killers.
The critics are wrong if they think the US can afford to rule out
preemption as one possible means for coping with this problem.
Without question, pre-emption brings risks. In purely military
terms, the US must make sure it strikes the right target. It also
must have high confidence that pre-emption can succeed.
The critical question is how Washington can make sound decisions
about pre-emptive war with less-than-perfect knowledge.
The record is not good. Proliferation expert Henry Sokolski, writing
in The Weekly Standard, cataloged some of the surprises
experienced by the US over the years: Russia’s first nuclear
test in 1949; India’s in 1974 and 1998; Israel’s efforts
in the1960s; and the actions of Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and North
Korea in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Given the record, one should not expect unambiguous intelligence.
The US was never likely to go off on a binge of pre-emption. The
problems in Iraq make that even less likely. Time-tested concepts
of deterrence and containment are available, as are diplomacy and
sanctions. Pre-emption should be viewed as simply one of many implements
in the nation’s security tool kit.
Americans may now be more reluctant to pre-empt, and the bar to
such action may be higher, but, in the current world situation,
the US is in no position to be giving up any of its options.
