Joe Biden was sent to Munich to deliver the Obama message to the adoring world. Of interest to me was the line on acting "preventively" rather than "pre-emptively". Ok, someone who believes in the hype....tell me what the difference is. No really. Help me out.
The Bush Administration made a mistake in drawing so much attention to pre-emptive operations. They named the un-named. We always had and always will have the right and duty to act to preserve our safety before the blow is landed by that other guy. Call it pre-emption, call it preventive...the outcome is the same. You schwack the other guy before he schwacks you.
Love reading speeches like this one...could have been given by George Bush, Dick Cheney or Condi Rice....
In Biden's foreign policy world, 70% of the time it works all the time...
ReplyDeleteStay classy Joe.
Actually, there is a big difference. Preventive war is directed against a future threat that isn't imminent. Pre-emptive war seeks to stop or gain advantage over an imminent threat that has materialized, or is certain to.
ReplyDeleteInternational law pretty much states the preventive war is illegal, while pre-emptive war (sometimes under the self-defense principle) is much more grey.
Whether you buy the difference or not, I find it funny that Biden, the foreign policy genious, said they will act in a manner that the international community generally accepts as illegal. I guess it is a manner of semantics, but it takes about 30 seconds to do a little research on Wikipedia to figure it out and remember that Bush was bashed for preventive war. Well done Joe.
Obviously, I don't believe the hype.
Well Mark...I just looked at the Wikipedia defs myself, and not to in any way defend Biden, I don't find the citations persuasive. I looked to see some kind of definitive sources...perhaps an article of the UN Charter or the recognized law of armed conflict...but instead I get Stephen Walt....I think you've put forward common sense definitions, I'm just not sure they are widely agreed to--hence my continuing confusion as to the terms....
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the poor wiki references. There are many more out there.
ReplyDeletePre-emptive is something like, the troops are massing at the border, all their tanks are pointed our way, so we strike first to seize the strategic initiative in the impending clash.
Preventive would be attacking a country's armed forces, since they could be a threat in the future, but haven't shown specific intent and their use against you isn't a certain outcome.
I need to dig up an old article I read about the futility of recogizing a difference between the two in the 21st century age of assymmetric warfare and terrorism. The key is, what is the point at which an attack would cease being "preventive" and become "pre-emptive"? Is it a matter intelligence? strategic warning? Capability? That is a topic for a whole different conversation...
The bottom line for this Biden speech is that they cherry-pick whatever rhetoric they think makes them look better in the eyes of the international community. They didn't say anything different.
Well said!
ReplyDeleteI love Google:
ReplyDeleteTHE IMPLICATIONS OF PREEMPTIVE
AND PREVENTIVE WAR DOCTRINES:
A RECONSIDERATION by Colin Gray
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB789.pdf
Upon a quick scan, it looks like it has, at the least, some good definitions. The summary looks good. I bet Biden hasn't read it.