Pre-emptive, Preventative, or Outright Aggression?
By Now for something we can all agree on. . .
Nobody, or nobody sensible, anymore believes that the Iraq War was pre-emptive. A pre-emptive war, let’s recall, is one launched against an enemy who is on the verge of attacking. Israel’s attack on Egypt and Syria in 1967 is the most often cited example of a pre-emptive war, although there is some question as to precisely when the Arab states were going to attack. Pre-emptive wars are simply wars started a few days early so that one side can seize a tactical advantage. Had the Soviet Union, for example, attacked Germany on June 20, 1941, the war would have been pre-emptive. Moreover, pre-emptive wars are accepted as just by nearly everyone who’s not a pacifist. The Bush administration and its apologists made some effort to describe the Iraq War as pre-emptive, but they don’t stick. The idea of an immanent Iraqi attack on the United States in 2003 doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Preventative fits a little bit better. A preventative war is one launched now, under favorable circumstances, in order to avoid a later deterioration of the circumstances. In short, you attack now because you expect that you will be weaker or your opponent stronger in the coming years, and you want to deal with the situation under the most favorable possible circumstances. Preventative war is difficult to distinguish from outright aggression, because state usually like to launch wars under favorable circumstances, and “national security” can almost always be twisted to mach the preventative criteria. Examples of preventative wars might include the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 (some German historians still make this claim), and the Japanese attack on the United States in 1941 (Japan was relatively weak, but saw its position as deteriorating even further). These examples demonstrate just how controversial the preventative criteria are; I think that a reasonable person might well be convinced that the Soviet Union was a long term threat to Germany in 1941, but did the Germans attack because they were afraid, or because they wanted most of Russia?
On its face, the Iraq War seems to fit the preventative criteria best. Iraq was weak, the US strong, and the US wanted to deal with Iraq before it could increase its capabilities by developing nuclear weapons or developing ties with terrorist organizations. The case even for these is shaky, as I’ll discuss in a moment. Preventative war, because of its plastic nature, does not receive the sanction of international law or just war theory. Virtually anyone can try to justify any war on preventative grounds.
The third kind of war is outright aggression. We want something you have, or we don’t like you, or we want to impose our own system, and we plan to achieve our goals through violence. This kind of war, clearly, cannot be sanctioned by international law or just war theory. Examples of this kind include the German invasion of Poland in 1939, or the US invasion of Mexico in 1846.
This list does not exhaust the types of war; it’s unclear, for example, that Austria-Hungary’s decision to attack Serbia in 1914 fits into any of these. Defensive war, whether on the behalf of one’s self or another, is usually cool. Nonetheless, the above are the descriptions we most often find of the Iraq War. Since the first is absurd, it makes sense to think about the second and third, that is, preventative war and outright aggression.
With this context, let me post this quote, via Crooked Timber, from the late Robin Cook:
For four years as Foreign Secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam’s medium and long-range missiles programmes. Iraq’s military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war. Ironically, it is only because Iraq’s military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam’s forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term—namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.
It doesn’t count as pre-emptive if the other side isn’t about to attack. It doesn’t count as preventative if the other side is growing weaker over time, rather than stronger. I suppose that an argument could be jury-rigged about the instability of the sanctions regime, but this ignores the virtual unanimity of the international community in standing against Iraq by late 2002. The French, Germans, and Russians were quite willing to accept a sustained, if somewhat smarter, sanctions regime by that point. If anything, Iraq would have been easier to attack a year or two years down the road. If that’s true, the war doesn’t even meet the relatively low standard of being a preventative conflict.
I know. News flash: Iraq War not justified! Usually, though, after I explain to my class the difference between pre-emptive and preventative, I make sure to point out that while the Iraq War clearly doesn’t fit into category A, it might fit into category B. I think, now, that I was wrong to do that. The Iraq War doesn’t even count as a preventative war, even if you squint hard.