Preemptive war: a prelude to global peril? - National Affairs

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 2003 by Charles W. Kegley, Jr., Gregory A. Raymond

Taking this a short step forward, other questions can be asked about the moral responsibilities of the strong and mighty. What are the obligations of the powerful? How should they react to threats from weaker states? In asymmetrical contests of will, where the playing field is strongly slanted to the advantage of a superpower such as the U.S., should it play according to the same rules as its enemies? Lowering itself to the modus operandi of the likes of Saddam can reduce the U.S. superpower to the standards of those it opposes. Flexing military muscles without an international mandate and without convincing justification can prostitute traditional and honorable American principles, erode the U.S.'s reputation, and undermine its capacity to lead. To practice what is not right is to sacrifice respect for a country's most-valuable asset--its reputation for virtue, the most-important factor in what is known as "soft power" in the exercise of global influence.

Can smashing perceived threats serve justice efficiently? Recall moral philosopher John Rawls' simple test of justice--"Would the best off accept the arrangements if they believed at any moment they might find themselves in the same place of the worst off?." Historian Christopher Dawson provided a partial answer when he noted that, "As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil they set out to destroy."

Applying this reasoning, what is likely to result if global norms are redefined to permit all states to defend themselves against potential threats in advance, before an enemy undertakes an attack or inflicts an injury? What if the U.S. doctrine becomes every state's and every terrorist movement's policy?

What the big powers do sets the standards that others follow. If other states act on the same rationale the U.S. has promulgated and take preventive military action against any enemy they claim is threatening them, the right to use force will be legitimized. The danger is that every country could conclude that preemption for preventive purposes is an acceptable practice. This doctrine of preemption would invite any state to attack any adversary that it perceived was threatening it.

A bottomless legal pit

Perhaps unwittingly, the Bush Administration appears not to have taken into consideration the probability that its doctrine will encourage most others to accept that same doctrine, or that a bottomless legal pit will be created. "The specific doctrine of preemptive action," argues Ikenberry, "poses a problem: once the United States feels it can take such a course of action, nothing will stop other countries from doing the same." Indeed, that prophecy has already been fulfilled as others have emulated the American position by taking "up preemption as a way of dealing with these problems. The Bush doctrine--or at best the rhetoric--has already been appropriated by Russia against Georgia, by India against Pakistan. The dominoes can be expected to fall if the strategy of preemption continues to spread, as surely it will if the United States pursues its new policy." Or, as Keller opines, "If everyone embraces [the U.S.] new doctrine, a messy world would become a lot messier. Caveat pre-emptor."