Pre-emption vs. Deterrence (Modern Warfare)

This should be a wide ranging debate about the pros and cons of Premption and Deterrence policies in regards to present day security challenges (not limited to the US). I apologize to CON for the confusion. Please allow me to refurbish my arguments from Round 1. Advantages of Preemptive Policy 1) Seizing of security initiatives. The primary advantage of premptive policy against all other defense policies is that it allows policymakers to interrupt on threats before they can grow and materialize. This key facet becomes even more advantageous in the 21st century where competing nation states -when given the dangerous high-tech vulnerabilities and unpredictable complexities of globalization- are constantly making and being hounded by asymmetrical security threats. A single cyber attack on the US power grid for instance, has in theory the abilityto wipe out all ecommerce & ecomincations in the US as well as all essential utilities access to millions of people. International terrorism, another 21st century security challenge, has the potential to force multiply its destruciveness if terrorists are free to roam, train, recruit, and actively plan attacks within a targeted nation's borders. And finally, critical intelligence and advanced warnings on terrorists and threatening actions by other nations often become useless if it cannot immediately be acted upon. Using Force premptively on these types of scenarios therefore, allows a nation state the best opportunity preserve its own defenses, prevent future chaos, and stop the house of cards from falling before things spiral completely out of control. Acting premptively also gives a country's military the best chance at succeeding during periods of armed conflict before a threat or adversary has a chance to prepare and make himself less vulnerable to retalitation. 2) Effective Arms Control Another key advantage of premptive policy over deterrence is its advantages at arms control, especially in regards to Weapons of Mass Destruction. Deterrence (along with Mutually Assured Destruction) only works when opposing parties can be counted on to act rationally with their given weapon arsenals. Unfortunately, in the present security setting, having rational adversaries can no longer be counted on due to the rise and spread of radical Islamic terrorism and the modern rouge state; who often care less about survival and international norms and more about spreading their ideological lies and visions of global dominance. Iraq, Iran, Syria, and N. Korea, for instance have all either previously used or obtained WMD materials inspite of international condemnation and sanctions. Without the fear of reprisal then, premption thus becomes the only means of which to guard against such an adversary before they can upset the global balance of power (either through blackmail, trading the weapon, or attack). Two of the best examples of premption working in preventing a weapon in this regard, are the Israeli airstrikes at the Oskirk reactor (Iraq 1981) and Al-Kibar reactor (Syria 2007) . Beyond preventing their development through forceful intervention, premption also has the advantage of preventing the spread of weapons. Following a policy of deterrence, what usually occurs is an arms race between rival nations and their allies as each power bloc tries to gain a quantitative and qualitative military advantage over the other. No where is this case more vibrantly demonstrated then during the Cold War where each side built massive nuclear arsenals and proliferated them to other countries. The hightened arms race tensions between the superpowers even arguably increased the chance of nuclear conflict. Proliferation and arms races however, not occur when a country acts militarily to prevent the spread of WMD. 3) Premptive Policy Adds to Deterrence By routinely acting premptively to protect its interests, a nation-state may add to its credibility to use military force, and therefore the credibility of its own deterrence. This aspect of premptive policy was demonstrated by the United States following the initial overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq when Libya (subsequently) voluntarily surrendered its own WMD arsenal in 2003 and when the Pakistani government shut down the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network in 2004.