Talk:Preemptive war

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Corrected "Carolina case" to "Caroline affair," the correct name as well as the Wikipedia article dealing with that matter.--sinfony 05:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] merging with pre-emptive strike

these two articles should be merged and pre-emptive strike should be redirected here. i know that it can be argued that a pre-emptive strike is different from a pre-emptive war, but in every context that i've seen, they can almost always be used interchangeably. these two articles are rather short anyway and i think they can be consolidated into one. i plan to make the changes but i wanted to post this notice so people have a chance to comment if they whish. uri budnik 19:36, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Should be merged. Also definitely needs something on the Caroline Case, where Daniel Webster enunciated the universally accepted standards for considering a preemptive strike legal. Do it myself if no one else does.--John Z 04:34, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Strike article dump-merged. Requires edit. -SV|t 23
57, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with preventative war

Should merge this with preventative war - difference only slight, and mostly in rhetorical, not in legal or practical meaning, hence no justification for separation ATT. Maybe when theres enough material a split would be is warranted. -SV|t 23:57, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It may be natural to discuss preventative and preemptive wars together, but there emphatically is a genuine legal and practical difference. If a war or strike really is preemptive, then it is very probably legal. If someone is flying bombers over a border, it is legal to shoot them down before they cross it, and there are long accepted criteria for judging whether a strike is preemptive. Preventative is almost certainly illegal in modern international law.--John Z 03:21, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not a fan. "Preemptive war" and "preventative war" have enough different connotations. The former has been used frequently enough in recent propoganda to justify keeping it separate. samwaltz 16:35, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it should be merged because whereas the two terms are not identical, their understanding requires the studying of both. Also, the differences need to be stressed, which would most efficiently be done in a "preemptive vs preventive wars" section in a merged article. gwnn 23:53 GMT, 10 September 2005

I agree, good reasons.John Z 10:54, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I do not think they should be merged. Preemptive war is waged upon a country that has the ability to attack a state militarily and poses a security threat. Preventitive war is waged upon a country that has no means of attacking militarily but in the future could possess this threat.

The difference between preemtive and preventive wars is most critical, among other reasons since one is currenctly considered acceptable and one is not according to common understanding of international law. Although nothing hinders that both articles refer to eachother, it will be a substantial blow to Wikipedia's credibility and value if they are merged. /Ruhrjung 14:57, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi; I agree with retaining separate articles, given the many different connotations of each topic. My two cents ... E Pluribus Anthony 17:00, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Agree with separate articles; the articles betray the differences between the two concepts in their first sections. There would be value on a page outlining their differences, as suggested by gwnn -- John of New Yawk 23:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Let G. W. Bush argue the issue at his trial at The Hague on crimes against peace. I personally believe these should be separate. Petri Krohn 07:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please don't merge

Please don't merge these subjects.

Even if voices here are right (I don't know) that these terms when measured against actual, empirical events; they don't address the same point of reference for taking military action. Preemptive war, to put it bluntly, means, from an intellectual point of view, that "We don't need or care about other states'/nations' views on the matter", whereas preventive war in theory needs some consolidation from other states or nations or similar interested parties. The actions that follow the declaration of either type of war may be the same, the results may become the same but there mere fact that the justification for starting a war will differ. In theory, a preventive war is a war started because a group of states or nations want to strike first, or consolidate such a strike, to avoid being struck at. Preemptive war means "We can go to war against anyone because we want to/because God told me to/etc. Preemptive war is more likely to be gratuitous and capricious.

At least consider this before merging. A cross-reference is enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredrikmo (talk • contribs)

[edit] Do not merge!

Definitely cannot be merged. In fact, there may be the requirement of a further separation - more than just hair-splitting and semantic. Why? There is a fundamental difference between a STRIKE and a WAR. A STRIKE is an action, like a battle, in a WAR, which is not an action but a series of ongoing events. Moreover, there is a difference between the terms pre-emptive and preventative. A pre-emptive strike may not be a preventative strike. For example, Saddam's invasion of Iran was a "pre-emptive" strike because he claimed Iran was going to invade Iraq. It did not prevent the war. So it was not a "preventative strike" (did not prevent the war) nor did it pre-empt the war because (and this is semantic) you cannot pre-empt something that you don't know is going to happen!

Effectively, there are "pre-emptive strike", "pre-emptive war", "preventative strike" and "preventative war". A pre-emptive war is caused BY a pre-emptive strike. A preventative war MAY be caused by a pre-emptive strike, but what exactly is a preventative war? It is not a war that prevents a war - its a war that prevents something else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boojam (talk • contribs)

A quote by Noam Chomsky that pretty much makes the point:

Pre-emption means something in international law. A pre-emptive attack is one that is taken in the case of an imminent, on-going threat. For example, if planes were flying across the Atlantic to bomb New York, it would be legitimate for the US Air Force to shoot them down. That's a pre-emptive attack. [1]

It is obvious that the meaning of "pre-emptive" is significantly more narrow and more restricted than "preventive". GregorB 00:10, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Apt quote. But the difference isn't only one of degree, with "pre-emptive" being more narrow than "preventative". As suggested by Chomsky and by the person above who said: "but what exactly is a preventative war? It is not a war that prevents a war - its a war that prevents something else.", the term "pre-emptive" is descriptive - but "preventative" exists more in the realm of propaganda - it's a term used to justify military action. Pinkville 16:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


They are atwo different things. I have been studying nuclear arms control and disarament, and we were explictly told that these are two different things. My prof is an expert in the field and is very specific on these types of clairifcations.

[edit] Pre-emptive strike

To clarify: If one adopts the Bush-Adminstration's interpretation of Article 51 of the UN Charter, it makes little sense to say that the opposition against pre-emptive strikes only comes from pacifists, previously invaded/occupied countries, and countries caught in the cross-fire of the Cold War. The standard interpretation of Article 51 does not allow for such "pre-emptive strikes" that the Bush-Administration speaks of (see e.g. Malanczuk, pp. 311-314, "Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law", 7th Ed). PJ 10:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Bush-speak is newspeak. The term "preemptive war", means (or is widely believed to mean) preventive war. That is what all the fuss is about. Petri Krohn 07:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article 51

I just realized that this entry on Preemptive War does not mention Article 51 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter at all. This is the Article that regulates the right to self-defence, which is the basis for this issue. PJ 11:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality of this article

Rather than equally addressing all opinions on this subject, this article seems to express a strong bias, and even that bias is left unjustified. In fact, the article reads almost like a rant. It is difficult not to have an opinion about preemptive war, but it ought to be attempted for the purposes of an intended reference. 12th March 2006. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimberly.Z (talk • contribs)

[edit] Removed Kerry

The following seems quite insignificant, especially since Kerry lost the 2004 election, so I removed it.

and was also supported by Senator John Kerry, 2004 Democratic nominee for the office of President of the United States.

Captain Jackson 06:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preemptive?

"The Soviet Union's aerial attack on Finland on June 25, 1941, as an answer to the German attack on Russia of June 22 (Operation Barbarossa leading to the Great Patriotic War), can be argued to be an example of such a preemptive attack, although failed, and though the bombing of residential districts has to be attributed a psychological aim rather than a tactical. Finland's army was mobilized and prepared for both defense and offense, its government had declared its intention to remain outside of the war, and its parliament was assembled to confirm the status of nonbelligerence when attacked. The following Continuation War led to a three year long Finnish occupation of Russian Karelia."

How is that preemptive when the Soviets had already attacked the Finns years earlier and initiated a Winter War in 1940? In all my years, never have I come across this as an example of preemption but in terms of the Great Patriotic War, the only "preemption" one could argue is Europe rallying behind the Nazis against Bolshevism or even the campaign itself from a German POV; many historians have commented that a conflict between the two European and extra-European powers may have been inevitable, so this certainly stands as an example. There is greater dispute over the USSR's pre-war intentions, but the fact that the preemptive strike figures so prominently in propaganda should not be ignored...in fact, it remains extremely relevant as the Old Trick - regardless of its legitimacy - continues to be used (Iraq). --Hohns3 19:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The Finns had already decided to attack and were fully prepared for attack. (See War-responsibility trials in Finland) Petri Krohn 07:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] There is a big difference between a war and strike and a big difference between preventive and preemptive!

It is silly to argue that all these articles should be merged. A case could be made for merging war and strike, because a strike could turn into a war.

Juridically there is a big difference between pre-emptive and preventive. In a preemptive strike the attack of the enemy is imminent. The enemy troops are at the border, enemy planes are in the air, etc. There can be no doubt that the enemy will attack within a small time frame. The Six-Day War is a preemptive stike, if you leave out all complexity. Often, in a preemptive strike the war has already started. It is just a strategical suprise attack. Actually, in the case of the Six-Day War you can see how complex this all is. Though Egypt was blockading the Straits of Tiran and that Nasser was trying to provoke Israel, it was not clear if they actually were to attack Israel. It seems they tried to deceive Israel into believing they would, trying to defeat an attacking Israel in the Sinai.

Actually, a blockade is an act of war - so the Israeli attack was not pre-emptive of war - it was pre-emptive of actual combat. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.108.61.221 (talk) 14:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

In a preventive war there are two powers that are imminent to clash, both politically, economically and military. It is believed that this can only lead to war. If one does not want to risk war then one will lose in diplomacy. So one of them decides to try to take care of this by starting a war before this can happen. Examples are the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Though one tries to justify a war like this, it is an act of aggression. Also note that though the Bush doctrine tries to claim preemptive strike, it actually claims the right to attack anyone when they want. I mean, calling the attack on Iraq a preventive war is silly. Iraq never had the power to oppose the US. Iraq only had one third the military buget of Kuwait and the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of conflict because the moral was so poor. Iraq was by far the weakest military power in the region. It could not even attack Kuwait. How could they threaten the US, and thus also their NATO allies?

This article claims that people confuse 'preemptive' and 'preventive'. Merging them will make the confusion bigger. Actually, it seems that the people that support merging either are confused themselves or they want to merge them for political reasons. To modify language in an [[Orwellian] way, just as was done with 'Liberal'.

I propose an article on 'preventive war', an act of aggression, and a 'preemptive strike', launching a suprise attack on enemy forces about to attack you. A 'preemptive war' is an oxymoron. Just like a 'preventive strike'.( 212.187.69.100 17:27, 26 April 2006)


Both these articles have problems and IMHO should be merged. I won't be able to do serious work for a week or two on them. Saying that they should be merged is not saying they are the same by any means, just that confusion is much less likely if they are put together, to put each other in relief. The more important difference is between preemptive and preventive, I do not like the idea of getting confusing by worrying about strike vs. war, which the articles do too much already. The important point is how and why the wars start.
The distinction is sometimes between anticipatory vs. pre-emptive rather than pre-emptive vs. preventive, where in the first pair, "pre-emptive" is used like "preventive" here at Wikipedia. The O'Connell paper has good footnote on this. This is another argument for merger, so we can explain how people use the 3 words for 2 concepts. If there are two articles, this one should be renamed anticipatory self-defense, and preemptive should be a disambiguation page pointing to "anticipatory" and "preventive."
Some difficulties are illustrated by the example of the 6 day war above. While Israel claimed to be preempting an imminent Egyptian attack, most scholars nowadays think that Egypt was not going to attack and did not want war or to provoke war, and that Israel knew this. That was the US belief at the time. Israeli cabinet discussions sound more like they were thinking of a preventive war. So this was probably a preventive but not unprovoked war, that of course was claimed to be legitimately preemptive/anticipatory, but because of the complicated background was not a clear case of aggression, like the US war on Iraq, or Hitler's attack on Poland, or Japan on Pearl Harbor. John Z 4.234.102.166 07:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-emptive strike Not As Politically Charging

It looks like someone already took a pre-emptive strike and already merged the articles. They are two different things. Look at the attack on Iraq's nuclear capabilities by Israel in the early 80's...that is a pre-emptive strike. Operation Iraqi Freedom is viewed as a pre-emptive war. It is pretty cut and clear and it seems to me the only reason to urge that these two articles be merged is for political bias to be rammed down the throat of the reader as the "negatives" for pre-emptive war start flowing in. Quotes from John Kerry? Come on now. [2] unsigned posted by anon 70.229.247.214, 2006-07-25 08:09:28

I see. Another loss for Orwell.
--80.56.36.253 15:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diacritics

I admit that I did put my foot in my mouth in my edit comment. I meant that "native" English words, as opposed to recently borrowed words, did not use diacritics. But I was unaware of the older and mostly obsolete usage of the diaeresis (see umlaut (diacritic) for a better discussion of the trema or diaeresis). See English language#Written accents and English words with diacritics. But the usage in "preempt" is almost completely deprecated (to use the computing term) and is considered an affectation. See wiktionary. --Justanother 17:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with article

I think that it is not OK to say only that preemptive war is maybe OK (or not) because of UN charter and state thinking. If we want that this article be honest we must write that only 2 states (or 3) of 192 support preemptive war. If 180 -190 states are against there is no discussion if this strategy is legal or not. In the end I want to put in this article that only Israel, U.S.A. (and maybe UK) support preemptive war. This way article will be clear to everybody who will read. What you think ? --Rjecina 16:37, 30 march 2007 (CET)

Pertinent information, but not exactly written in good English and should be more relevant, linking the ideas of supporting preemptive war to unstable world relations more effectively.

"Today only U.S. and Israel support policy of "preemptive war" in difference to all other members of U.N. This policy is very good shown in polls where people from all countries think that this two states are more dangerous for world peace of any other. In last poll of 2007 democratic Israel is in first, fundamentalist Iran second and democratic U.S. on third place. [3]" -70.2.55.161 05:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

There were many nations who participated in the invasion of Iraq. Therefore, the claim that only the United States and Israel supported the policy of a preemptive war seems very incorrect to me. For this reason, I think it would be best to remove this claim. --Tecky 01:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

This article (and claim in question) is about Preemptive war and popular thinking. Article is not about Iraq war. --Rjecina 03:40, 9 April 2007 (CET)
The fact that so many nations participated in the invasion of Iraq shows that Israel and the United Staes are not the only nations supporting the policy of preemptive wars. Therefore, your claim is, in my opinion, false. I do, however, find the fact very interesting, that the global poll found the United States and Israel to have very negative ratings. This fact is definately worth mentioning in the article. --Tecky 02:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

From my looking of this sort of polls facts from that are even very good US. In years before that Iran has been on lower places but because of really great propaganda against this state they have come to second place. In this polls only things which never change are place of Israel and US which always take 2 of 3 medals.

About which states support of preemptive war what to say ? Israel and US support it 100 % (when they attack because in this thinking Pearl H. has been preemptive attack). State which has attacked Iraq with US has vasals which will never alone start this type of war. Maybe this part of article we can write another way. We will not write :

"Today only U.S. and Israel support policy of "preemptive war" in difference to all other..."

but:

"Today only population of U.S. and Israel support policy of "preemptive war" in difference to people in all other....." Why this ? If you look Iraq war all other states which has entered this war has done this against popular thinking (Israel population support preemptive war). Do you remember Bush speaking about brave leaders (which has entered war against people wishes)

What you think ?

--Rjecina 04:37, 9 April 2007 (CET)

Such a formulation would be better. But I doubt that most of the U.S. population still supports preemptive wars, after the Iraq war. I think that now, after the Iraq war, most of the population of the U.S. would be against another preemptive war. The U.S. President Bush has lost a lot of public support in this respect, in the last few years. With regard to Israel, what you say may be correct, I don't know.

I do believe, however, that one can't simply say whether a state (or population thereof) supports the policy of a preemptive war or not. If, for example, one state announced it would build nuclear weapons in order to wipe out several other states, most members of the U.N would favor a preemptive war against that state. For this reason, I don't think it is meaningful to say who favors the policy of a preemptive war and who doesn't.

However, as I said before, I consider the results of the global poll very interesting, since the perceived negative influence of Israel and the U.S. on the world is significant. This fact should stay in the article, because this is very likely a result of preemptive wars those two countries have fought.

--"Very likely"? Fact or opinion? In fact, it has nothing to do with the article. The whole Global Poll section tells the reader *nothing* about preemptive war, simply that a BBC World Service Poll of *12 countries* names the USA & Israel as "perceived to have the greatest negative influence on the world". And what has that to do with preemptive war? Nothing. Stick to an article about preemptive war & leave out POV.ScottMo 15:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

--Tecky 14:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My thinking is that you make 1 very great mistake about US population. Even now you have more of 30 % americans which support preemptive war against Iran so that he do not make nuclear bomb. With very little propaganda action I am sure that 60 % americans or more will support air attack on this state. This numbers you will never have in Europe. --Rjecina 19:52, 10 April 2007 (CET)

What you say may be correct. However, this is your personal opinion, not a generally accepted fact. Wikipedia defines a fact as "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." Therefore, your claim in the main article violates Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view and Wikipedia:Attribution. I have therefore removed it from the main article and have reformulated the remainder of your paragraph. I hope my new formulation is acceptable to you? --Tecky 02:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abraham Sofaer

I am assuming that this section refers to "Abraham D. Sofaer", Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs, and not "Abraham Sofaer", the Burmese-Jewish actor from Star Trek. The link points to the latter, and may cause some confusion with those looking for the scholar. I changed the link yesterday, but it seems that it has been changed back, perhaps as there is no page concerning the former. I don't know much about Abraham D. Sofaer other than what i have already mentioned, but I suggest someone create a page about him, so that we can link his name in this article there. --24.235.139.113 20:40, 12 June 2007

Sorry, I changed the link back after I saw the link was referring to a non-existant article. I agree with you that the link is referring to the wrong person. Therefore, I will remove the link now. By the way, in future, please sign all your changes in the discussion page with four tildes, as instructed at the top of the edit page. This applies only to talk/discussion pages, though. --Tecky 23:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iran?

The article specifies Iran's unpopularity in poll findings, but when has Iran engaged in a pre-emptive war? I thought the Iran-Iraq war was initiated by Iraq? --mathewannis 17:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The point is that the United States and Israel (who both have often started preemptive wars) are perceived to have a similar negative influence as Iran. It was not my intention to imply that Iran had participated in preemptive wars. Maybe my formulation should somehow be changed to clarify this? --Tecky 14:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

OK maybe I have make mistake in changing article so that is not speaking about Iran. You can return this back or you can clarify text. My thinking of clarify can be only to add political sistem of country. Example: Democratic Israel is on 1 place, "fundamentalist" Iran on second and democratic USA on 3rd. If you write something like that important if that you put that " when you say fundamentalist because this is only western thinking --Rjecina 14:51, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I have reformulated the sentence and I used the term "rogue states" instead of "fundamentalist". --Tecky 00:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pearl Harbour

I just removed the passage about PH possibly being a Pre-emptive strike. Actually nothing could have been more contrary to US interests than a war with Japan. The US administration was busy expanding the undeclared war with Germany. In that context another war was seen as an unwelcome distraction. See G.W. Prange “At dawn we slept” for details. Markus Becker02 11:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

someone put it back, i've removed it again. please don't add unsourced material of this nature. pearl harbor was, at best, preventive, theres no way it could be consider preemptive. SJMNY (talk) 01:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where's Nuremberg?

Didn't Nuremberg Tribunal rule preemptive strikes were war crimes? Seems very pertinent to this topic. Above paragraph about Pearl Harbor is dead wrong btw. The actual history of PH is very complex and while preemptive strike doesn't fit, it's not true to say it didn't serve Roosevelt's interests.Hypatea 12:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)