Bush did not invent preemption. There was a lot of debate, for example, in the early period of nuclear weaponry over the appropriateness of preemptive attack should conflict appear inevitable. One reason that the United States and the Soviet Union moved from counterforce targeting to counterpopulation targeting was to decrease the temptation to preventive attack. If one is targeting military assets, there is reason to try to gain an edge, but targeting cities cannot possibly preclude retaliation, and thus contributes to a stalemate of Mutually Assured Destruction.
In general, preemption is an invocation of exigent circumstances, and presupposes that worse would come if it were not invoked. For example, when the Israelis bombed the Iraqi reactor, because it was producing weaponizable material, I thought they were right to do so. If the Iraqis are pursuing weapons of mass destruction, especially nukes, they are not doing so for defensive reasons, but as a prelude to aggression. Will we do more harm than good to wait and see what aggression Saddam contemplates?
Suppose the international community had challenged Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland, by force if necessary? Would that have acted as a deterrent to adventure, or even brought about regime change? After all, he was in violation of a treaty obligation, and one difficult to overlook.
Similarly, even during the Weimar period, Germany contrived to get around treaty obligations about rearming and about its troop forces. The activity merely stepped up after Hitler took power. By making conscription brief, almost all Germany males had military training, and were in the reserve, for example, and several foreign countries permitted construction and storage of heavy armaments, tanks, and planes. Would we have been wise to have invoked international obligations and to have enforced them? And if the Germans actively resisted, would we have been right to have invaded?
There is no point in making rules against non- proliferation, or adjuring demilitarization of certain territories, or otherwise imposing international obligations, if there is neither the capacity nor the will to enforce them. It seems to me that the Bush Administration is facing these issues in a way that others have been unwilling to, and has come up with the correct answer....... |
