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We
face no more serious decision in our democracy than whether or not to
go to war. The American people deserve to fully understand all of the
implications of such a decision.
 The
question of whether our nation should attack Iraq is playing out in
the context of a more fundamental debate that is only just beginning—an
all-important debate about how, when and where in the years ahead our
country will use its unsurpassed military might.
On
September 20, the Administration unveiled its new National Security
Strategy. This document addresses the new realities of our age, particularly
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks
armed with the agendas of fanatics. The Strategy claims that these new
threats are so novel and so dangerous that we should "not hesitate
to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by
acting pre-emptively."
But
in the discussion over the past few months about Iraq, the Administration,
often uses the terms "pre-emptive" and "preventive"
interchangeably. In the realm of international relations, these two
terms have long had very different meanings.
Traditionally,
"pre-emptive" action refers to times when states react to
an imminent threat of attack. For example, when Egyptian and Syrian
forces mobilized on Israel's borders in 1967, the threat was obvious
and immediate, and Israel felt justified in pre-emptively attacking
those forces. The global community is generally tolerant of such actions,
since no nation should have to suffer a certain first strike before
it has the legitimacy to respond.
By
contrast, "preventive" military action refers to strikes that
target a country before it has developed a capability that could someday
become threatening. Preventive attacks have generally been condemned.
For example, the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was regarded as a
preventive strike by Japan, because the Japanese were seeking to block
a planned military buildup by the United States in the Pacific.
The
coldly premeditated nature of preventive attacks and preventive wars
makes them anathema to well-established international principles against
aggression. Pearl Harbor has been rightfully recorded in history as
an act of dishonorable treachery.
Historically,
the United States has condemned the idea of preventive war, because
it violates basic international rules against aggression. But at times
in our history, preventive war has been seriously advocated as a policy
option.
In
the early days of the Cold War, some U.S. military and civilian experts
advocated a preventive war against the Soviet Union. They proposed a
devastating first strike to prevent the Soviet Union from developing
a threatening nuclear capability. At the time, they said the uniquely
destructive power of nuclear weapons required us to rethink traditional
international rules.
The
first round of that debate ended in 1950, when President Truman ruled
out a preventive strike, stating that such actions were not consistent
with our American tradition. He said, "You don't 'prevent' anything
by war...except peace." Instead of a surprise first strike, the
nation dedicated itself to the strategy of deterrence and containment,
which successfully kept the peace during the long and frequently difficult
years of the Cold War.
Arguments
for preventive war resurfaced again when the Eisenhower Administration
took power in 1953, but President Eisenhower and Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles soon decided firmly against it. President Eisenhower
emphasized that even if we were to win such a war, we would face the
vast burdens of occupation and reconstruction that would come with it.
The
argument that the United States should take preventive military action,
in the absence of an imminent attack, resurfaced in 1962, when we learned
that the Soviet Union would soon have the ability to launch missiles
from Cuba against our country. Many military officers urged President
Kennedy to approve a preventive attack to destroy this capability before
it became operational. Robert Kennedy, like Harry Truman, felt that
this kind of first strike was not consistent with American values. He
said that a proposed surprise first strike against Cuba would be a "Pearl
Harbor in reverse. "For 175 years," he said, "we have
not been that kind of country." That view prevailed. A middle ground
was found and peace was preserved.
Yet
another round of debate followed the Cuban Missile Crisis when American
strategists and voices in and out of the Administration advocated preventive
war against China to forestall its acquisition of nuclear weapons. Many
arguments heard today about Iraq were made then about the Chinese communist
government: that its leadership was irrational and that it was therefore
undeterrable. And once again, those arguments were rejected.
As
these earlier cases show, American strategic thinkers have long debated
the relative merits of preventive and pre-emptive war. Although nobody
would deny our right to pre-emptively block an imminent attack on our
territory, there is disagreement about our right to preventively engage
in war.
In
each of these cases a way was found to deter other nations, without
waging war.
Now,
the Bush Administration says we must take pre-emptive action against
Iraq. But what the Administration is really calling for is preventive
war, which flies in the face of international rules of acceptable behavior.
The Administration's new National Security Strategy states "As
a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against
such emerging threats before they are fully formed."
The
circumstances of today's world require us to rethink this concept. The
world changed on September 11th, and all of us have learned
that it can be a drastically more dangerous place. The Bush Administration's
new National Security Strategy asserts that global realities now legitimize
preventive war and make it a strategic necessity.
The
document openly contemplates preventive attacks against groups or states,
even absent the threat of imminent attack. It legitimizes this kind
of first strike option, and it elevates it to the status of a core security
doctrine. Disregarding norms of international behavior, the Bush Strategy
asserts that the United States should be exempt from the rules we expect
other nations to obey.
I
strongly oppose any such extreme doctrine and I'm sure that many others
do as well. Earlier generations of Americans rejected preventive war
on the grounds of both morality and practicality, and our generation
must do so as well. We can deal with Iraq without resorting to this
extreme.
It
is impossible to justify any such double standard under international
law. Might does not make right. America cannot write its own rules for
the modern world. To attempt to do so would be unilateralism run amok.
It would antagonize our closest allies, whose support we need to fight
terrorism, prevent global warming, and deal with many other dangers
that affect all nations and require international cooperation. It would
deprive America of the moral legitimacy necessary to promote our values
abroad. And it would give other nations—from Russia to India to Pakistan—an
excuse to violate fundamental principles of civilized international
behavior.
The
Administration's doctrine is a call for 21st century American
imperialism that no other nation can or should accept. It is the antithesis
of all that America has worked so hard to achieve in international relations
since the end of World War II.
This
is not just an academic debate. There are important real world consequences.
A shift in our policy toward preventive war would reinforce the perception
of America as a "bully" in the Middle East, and would fuel
anti-American sentiment throughout the Islamic world and beyond.
It
would also send a signal to governments the world over that the rules
of aggression have changed for them too, which could increase the risk
of conflict between countries such as Russia and Georgia, India and
Pakistan, and China and Taiwan.
Obviously,
this debate is only just beginning on the Administration's new strategy
for national security. But the debate is solidly grounded in American
values and history.
It
will also be a debate among vast numbers of well-meaning Americans who
have honest differences of opinion about the best way to use U.S. military
might. The debate will be contentious, but the stakes – in terms of
both our national security and our allegiance to our core beliefs –
are too high to ignore. I look forward to working closely with my colleagues
in Congress to develop an effective and principled policy that will
enable us to protect our national security and respect the basic principles
that are essential for the world to be at peace.
Senator
Edward M. Kennedy represents Massachusetts in the United States Senate.
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