The Question of Preventive War

Abstract

Events of the past few decades have consistently worked to modify our conception of international justice, international ethics, political violence, terrorism, and global warfare. The early years of the twenty-first century further challenged previously held notions, largely due to 9/11, the so-called War on Terror, and the ensuing Iraq war. Indeed, the second Iraq war (the Gulf War being the first) altered our understanding of many of these issues. In this chapter, I consider the impact that the war on Iraq has had on the notion of preventive war. While the Iraq war itself did not contribute to the invention or formulation of this controversial doctrine, it does serve as the first example of a full-scale preventive war since the United States adopted the policy as part of its official national defense strategy. In waging the Iraq war, the George W. Bush administration demonstrated significant departure from the legalist paradigm that had regulated international war convention throughout the past six decades. Thus the Iraq war resuscitated a long-standing debate that focused primarily on the need to prohibit (or severely limit) preventive war measures on legal, moral, or strategic grounds. Of course, the doctrine also has its fair share of proponents, particularly in the realist political tradition.