Preemptive Action: When, How,

and to What Effect?

by M. Elaine Bunn

Strategic Forum

T

he Bush administration’s concept of

preemptive action has become a lightning rod in domestic and international

politics. Proponents see it as a prudent response to terrorism and rogue states, which

may not be deterred from threatening or using

weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Critics

contend that the concept will exacerbate

distrust of the United States on the part of

allies and potential partners and may make

rogue states more risk-prone.

There is a good deal of misunderstanding and confusion about this concept. Preemption usually is associated with military

strikes, but financial, diplomatic, and law

enforcement measures also can be used in

preemptive ways to enhance security.

Preemption is not a new option. U.S.

officials have contemplated preemptive

military actions against WMD several times,

usually without taking action. What is new is

open discussion of preemption.

Successful preemptive strikes require

precise, prompt actions with decisive effects.

Thus, the United States must be prepared to

invest in intelligence, surveillance, and

reconnaissance capabilities, planning assets, and, potentially, new military forces.

The National Security Strategy of the

United States does not establish clear criteria

for preemptive military action. Apprehension

about the current policy might be assuaged

with an elaboration of the general conditions

and circumstances, or the factors to be

weighed, for the preemptive use of force.

What role should preemptive action play

in U.S. national strategy? In the wake of the first

public statements by President George W. Bush

in June 2002, and in the buildup to military

action against Iraq, the issue quickly became 

a lightning rod for controversy. While some

commentators hailed preemption as a valuable

concept whose time had come, others condemned it as a dangerous precedent that could

damage American interests, strain our relations

overseas, and make the United States a feared

unilateralist in the international system. All the

hue and cry has done little to clarify the issues

and choices that policymakers face in weighing

the utility and limits of the concept.

The National Security Strategy of the

United States of America (September 2002)

states that “the United States will, if necessary,

act preemptively” to prevent rogue states or

terrorists from threatening or using weapons

of mass destruction (WMD) against the United

States or its friends and allies (see page 2). Yet

there is much misunderstanding and confusion about the administration’s concept of

preemption, which has led to a great deal of

apprehension. Some of the confusion is selfinflicted, some is circumstantial, and some

results from willful misreading. 

While the administration was laying out a

general concept, it did so against the backdrop

of Iraq. It is not surprising, then, that some

have failed to distinguish between the two. Iraq

may be the first case study in the new policy—

although some argue that action against Iraq

was not preemption but a preventive war, while

others argue it was a continuation of action

from the 1991 Gulf War. In any event, Iraq is

not the sum total of the policy.

In the popular mind, preemption is synonymous with the use of force, and specifically

with military strikes. But the concept has a

broader meaning and application, as implied

by the administration’s careful emphasis on

preemptive action. To preempt is defined in

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as “to

prevent from happening or taking place: forestall; preclude.” Many of the preemptive actions

that the United States is likely to undertake will

be nonmilitary. And the nonmilitary methods

of preemptive action are likely to be less controversial than military preemption.

Historical Antecedents

There are a number of historical examples of the United States contemplating preemptive military actions including against

WMD-armed adversaries (at least partially

motivated by preemption or prevention, sometimes in addition to other motives), but only a

small number of examples in which preemptive military action was actually taken.

U.S. Government deliberations in the late

1940s and early 1950s considered attacking

Soviet nuclear capabilities while they were a

fledgling force, and discussions in the early

1960s debated whether to take out Chinese

nuclear capabilities.1 In neither case did the

United States go forward with preemptive strikes.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962

has been cited repeatedly by Bush administration officials as an example of preemptive

action (as opposed to a preemptive

strike); the quarantine or blockade

of Cuba was intended to prevent

any further buildup of 

offensive arms (mediumrange ballistic missiles

No. 200

July 2003

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

Key Points

No. 200, July 2003 Post-9/11 Critical 

Issues Series
and nuclear warheads were already on the

island, although the presence of nuclear warheads was not clear at the time).2

In 1989–1990, America threatened to

take military action to shut down a Libyan

chemical facility at Rabta, which the United

States suspected was intended to produce

mustard or nerve gas. (This was against the

backdrop of earlier tensions with Libyan leader

Muammar Qadhafi and the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libyan leadership sites [Operation El

Dorado Canyon] following the bombing of a

Berlin night club that killed two Americans.)

Qadhafi subsequently shut down the Rabta

facility, claiming that a fire had destroyed it.

U.S. officials in 1996 also threatened military

strikes against a suspected chemical weapons

plant that Qadhafi was building under a

mountain near Tarhunah.3

In 1994, when North Korea threatened to

remove fuel rods from the Yongbyon nuclear

reactor, U.S. officials considered a preemptive

strike on the reactor with conventional precision

weapons. Former officials have recently testified

that they were confident that such a strike would

have eliminated the facilities at Yongbyon without causing any radioactive plume to be emitted

downwind, but they also recognized that the

result might well have been a very destructive

North Korean conventional attack on South

Korea. (Such a war was averted by the negotiation of the 1994 Agreed Framework.4

)

The United States is not the only country

that has considered or carried out preemptive

actions. The classic case is the 1981 Israeli

attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility because

of concern that Iraq would use the reactor to

produce highly enriched uranium for a

weapons program. (Iran had previously

bombed Osirak, in the opening days of the IranIraq war in 1980, lightly damaging the

facility.5

) After its 1981 attack, Israel claimed it

was exercising its inherent right of self-defense,

consistent with Article 51 of the United Nations

(UN) charter. The UN Security Council censured

Israel, and the U.S. Ambassador to the UN spoke

against Israel for its action.6

In these historical cases—none of which

involved nonstate actors—the risk/benefit

analysis of preemptive action was controversial.

These examples point to the difficult choices

associated with preemption and to the likelihood that, in the future, there will probably

be relatively few situations where the risks of

preemptive military action are worth the costs. 

Though the option for preemption is not

new, talking about it publicly and raising it

(arguably) to the level of doctrine is new,

which may be both helpful and harmful.

Moreover, while the National Security Strategy

sensibly refrains from setting down rigid criteria for when preemptive military action should

be seriously considered or used, its reticence to

elaborate the general conditions and circumstances, or the factors to be weighed in deciding on the preemptive use of force, has failed to

resolve uncertainty regarding administration

decisionmaking when faced with difficult

future situations.

To better understand the issues at stake in

the concept of preemptive action, consider the

following questions: why the new focus on

preemption; against whom and what; when,

how, and to what effect preemptive action

might be considered?

The New Focus

The motivations underlying the Bush

administration’s emphasis on preemption

spring from three strongly held assessments of

the changing nature of international security

and the heightened vulnerability of Americans

to new-era threats.

The first, and foremost, perception is a

growing nexus between transnational terrorism

and WMD proliferation. It is hard to overestimate the impact of September 11, 2001, on

administration thinking. In the months after

the attacks, Congress and the public were

asking what administration officials knew

beforehand and whether they had done everything possible to prevent it. As the weight of

responsibility for protecting the United States

from an even worse occurrence—a potential

September 11 with nuclear, biological, or

chemical weapons—settled on the shoulders of

administration officials, the need to act swiftly

and firmly before threats become attacks is

perhaps the clearest lesson they have drawn

from that experience.

Second, there is a growing pessimism

about deterrence. In the case of rogue state

2 Strategic Forum No. 200, July 2003

M. Elaine Bunn is a distinguished research fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the

National Defense University. Comments may be addressed to Ms. Bunn at bunne@ndu.edu.

Administration Statements on Preemption 

■ President Bush first explicitly discussed preemption in a speech at West Point on June 1, 2002:

“If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. . . . We must take the

battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge . . . our

security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.”

■ In September 2002, the concept was elaborated in the National Security Strategy: “We must

be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or

use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends . . . The

greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction—and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place

of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United

States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”

■ National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice further clarified the strategy in an October 1, 2002,

speech: “The number of cases in which it might be justified will always be small. Preemptive

action does not come at the beginning of a long chain of effort.”

■ In December 2002, the Bush administration released its National Strategy to Combat Weapons

of Mass Destruction, which states: “Because deterrence may not succeed, and because of the

potentially devastating consequences of WMD use against our forces and civilian population,

U.S. military forces and appropriate civilian agencies must have the capability to defend

against WMD-armed adversaries, including in appropriate cases through preemptive measures. This requires capabilities to detect and destroy an adversary’s WMD assets before these

weapons are used.”
leaders, deterrence—while still applicable—

may not always work. The perceived high-risk

strategies of the former Iraqi and current North

Korean leadership have added fuel to such

arguments. In addition, some analysts have

come to a working assumption that “deterring

terrorists” is an oxymoron and that in the case

of terrorists and WMD, possession equals use.

While some believe that seeking to deny terrorists their objectives may have some (modest)

long-term deterrent effect, many believe that

terrorist organizations—which lack populations to protect or territory to safeguard and

whose operatives may be willing to die for their

cause—are essentially undeterrable, or at least

very difficult to deter given international standards and political norms (for example, the

unacceptability of threatening reprisals against

innocent family members).

Third, there is a realization that if deterrence fails, defenses will never be perfect. Even

if America had defenses of all types—ballistic

missile defense, cruise missile and other air

defenses, civil defense, detection, vaccines,

port/border checks, and so forth—those defenses would not be 100 percent effective

against WMD threats 100 percent of the time.

As Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has stressed, “It

is not possible to defend against every conceivable kind of attack in every conceivable location at every minute of the day or night. . . . The

best, and in some cases, the only defense, is a

good offense.”7

Statements pointing to this administration’s lack of confidence in traditional deterrence precede its statements on preemption.

The President’s May 2001 speech at the National Defense University addressed the need to

broaden the concept of deterrence and put in

new, more capable offensive and defensive

elements to bolster this concept.8 His campaign

speech at The Citadel in September 1999 also

sounded the theme that traditional deterrence

is not sufficient in the new security situation.9

However, the first explicit mention of preemption during the Bush administration was in the

statement of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff in the Quadrennial Defense Review

Report issued September 30, 2001.10 In recognizing that defense of the U.S. homeland is the

highest priority for the Armed Forces, the report

states that the United States “must deter, preempt, and defend against aggression” targeted

at the United States.

What to Preempt?

Administration officials have consistently

stated that the concept of preemption is focused

on terrorists and rogue states—thereby presumably easing the minds of leaders in Russia and

China, while potentially heightening concerns

in Iraq (prior to the fall of Saddam), Iran,

North Korea, and possibly Libya and Syria.

Rogue states. Though the President seems

to have avoided the term “axis of evil” since he

used it in his January 2002 State of the Union

address, the National Security Strategy’s characterization of rogue states appears to define the

common traits of countries in the axis: those

who brutalize their own people, display no

regard for international law, threaten their

neighbors, are determined to acquire weapons

of mass destruction, sponsor terrorism around

the globe, and reject basic human values.

(Interestingly, the National Security Strategy

applies this characterization and the phrase

rogue state only to Iraq and North Korea—

omitting Iran, the third country named in the

axis of evil speech.)

Terrorists. The National Security Strategy

defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically

motivated violence perpetrated against innocents” and focuses as a priority on disrupting

and destroying “terrorist organizations of

global reach.”

While the National Security Strategy

lumps together rogue states and terrorists when

discussing preemption, it is useful to consider

them separately. There are important differences that may yield different preemptive

options. In addition, the threshold for obtaining international support for preemptive action

against a recognized sovereign state (even a

rogue state) is likely to be significantly higher

than against terrorist groups. In fact, many

argue that because al Qaeda has attacked the

United States (even before September 11), it is

not “preemption” for America to seek to destroy

al Qaeda infrastructure and leadership.11

Targets. The U.S. Government might want

the option of taking preemptive action against

a range of threats by rogue states and terrorists,

including aggression of any kind, and particularly conventional attacks with mass effects,

such as the September 11 attacks. However,

American officials have focused their discussion almost exclusively on WMD—that is,

chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

Even within the restricted subset of 

WMD, one might consider preempting the

development of weapons-useable material,

acquisition of weapons, or their use. Specific

WMD targets might include:

■ pre-capability components of weapons or

precursor agents

■ production sites, storage, deployment sites,

launchers or other delivery systems

■ military forces (of rogue states) or operatives

(of terrorist networks) that might employ WMD

■ command and control systems (which may

be very different for terrorists than for rogue states),

including leadership or a regime.

When to Preempt?

There has been considerable discussion of

the distinction between preemptive action

(when adversary use of force is imminent) and

preventive action (for example, depriving an

adversary of a capability that it might someday

have or averting an action that it might someday contemplate). Some observers maintain that

the issue being raised by the administration is

not preemption but instead preventive military

operations or preventive war—that is, taking

preventive action before the need is certain and

balancing the risks of acting against those of not

acting. The threshold of a decision to take

preventive action will be much higher than for

preemptive action, for which there is actual,

presentable intelligence of an imminent threat.

However, from a practical standpoint, since the

President and the National Security Strategy first

used the phrases preemptive action and preemption, they have taken hold in public discussion. The debate really revolves, then, around

the definition of imminent.

There are two ways to think about a

preemption timeline: either the traditional

peacetime-to-crisis-to-conflict-to-postconflict

timeline, in which preemptive action is taken

in peacetime or a building crisis; or, in the case

of WMD, where an adversary is on the acquisition-to-use timeline. The points on the latter

continuum range from just prior to the time at

which an adversary has acquired a useable

capability (for example, disrupting/interdicting

delivery of the last item needed for a completed

WMD capability, or in the terrorist case, interdicting the team before it infiltrates the WMD

site, or before the handover of materials takes

place), to the point where an adversary has the

capability and generally hostile intent, to the

point where there is a specific hostile intent

and use is imminent.

No. 200, July 2003 Strategic Forum 3
4 Strategic Forum No. 200, July 2003

At what point is danger imminent? Condoleezza Rice has noted, “new technology

requires new thinking about when a threat

actually becomes ‘imminent’. . . We must adapt

the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.”12 We

can imagine a scenario in which preemption

would be justified based on imminent danger.

For instance, suppose that the United States

had firm intelligence that a hostile rogue

government was about to launch missiles with

nuclear warheads that could kill millions of

Americans (in the case of no or imperfect

missile defenses). A President would at least

have to consider the possibility of preemption

in such a situation. If one is absolutely sure

that a devastating attack is coming, preemption is an easier choice. That scenario is at one

end of a WMD time continuum. At the other

end is a nation with general hostile intentions

and for which there is ambiguous intelligence

regarding efforts to acquire WMD. Where along

that spectrum is preemptive action justifiable?

Presidents will likely hesitate to preempt when

today looks quite a bit like yesterday, and they

anticipate that tomorrow is going to look quite

a bit like today. This raises the question of what

U.S. thresholds will be and how to describe the

action points.

Michael Waltzer, in his 1977 book Just

and Unjust Wars, drew the line between

legitimate and illegitimate first strikes not at

the point of imminent attack but at the point

of sufficient threat—a phrase he recognized

as “necessarily vague.” He meant it to cover

three things: “a manifest intent to injure, a

degree of active preparation that makes that

intent a positive danger, and a general situation in which waiting, or doing anything other

than fighting, greatly magnifies the risk.”13

It is ironic that the closer to the “imminent

use” end of the spectrum a situation falls, the

easier preemption is to justify politically, but the

harder it may be to be operationally decisive,

because the adversary will likely have protected

the intended targets of preemption through

deception, hardening, burial, dispersal, or predelegation of release. Conversely, the farther

from the imminent use end of the continuum a

situation is, the less acceptable it is likely to be

to world opinion, though preemptive strikes at

that stage are more likely to be effective in

eliminating or postponing the threat.

How to Preempt?

Though most tend to think of preemption

in terms of strike—kinetic weapons on target—the ways in which preemptive action can

be carried out are much broader. Preemptive

action also could employ a variety of nonmilitary, as well as military and intelligence, capabilities. The National Security Strategy states

that the “United States will not use force in all

cases to preempt emerging threats.” Rice, in

interviews shortly after the President’s June

2002 West Point speech, made clear that preemptive action did not necessarily imply force.

She stated, “It really means early action of

some kind. It means forestalling certain destructive acts against you by an adversary.”14

The National Strategy for Homeland

Security, released in July 2002, has been little

noticed in the preemption debate, although it

addresses the issue extensively—in terms of

“preventing and preempting future attacks.”15

It notes that:

with advance warning, we have various federal,

state, and local response assets that can intercede

and prevent terrorists from carrying out attacks.

These include law enforcement, emergency

response, and military teams. In the most dangerous of incidents, particularly when terrorists

have chemical, biological, radiological, 

or nuclear weapons in their possession, it is

crucial that the individuals who preempt the

terrorists do so flawlessly, no matter if they are

part of the local SWAT team or the FBI’s Hostage

Rescue Team.16

Where preemptive action occurs will have

implications for how it is done. Places might

include international territory (such as interdicting capabilities, precursors, or terrorists at

sea); the territory of a rogue state; the territory

of a falling or failing state; or the territory of a

friend or ally. Preemptive action in the latter

case—that is, in nonmilitary ways with the

cooperation of an ally—may be very different

from that against rogue or failing states.

At times, military action will be required

for preemption to be effective. Even in those

cases, there are a variety of methods for applying military forces preemptively. While most

people tend to focus on kinetic strike capabilities, there are also nonkinetic offensive means

such as information operations (for example,

disrupting command, control, and communications); special operations forces; or Coast

Guard/Navy boarding ships, imposing blockades, or turning back/sabotaging shipments.

The December 2002 interception of a North

Korean ship at sea carrying 15 Scud missiles is

an example of what that type of preemptive

action—interdiction at sea as a kind of aggressive nonproliferation—might look like.17

When preemptive military action is required, there will likely be a need for decisive

effect and the ability to act promptly for such

action to be successful—not only to take

advantage of potentially fleeting opportunities

but also to allow the maximum amount of

time for consultation, consideration, and

deliberation of whether the United States will

take action. America must be prepared to

make investments in improving intelligence,

surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities;

planning, including analysis of the effects of

executing a plan (especially attacking WMD

sites while trying to minimize collateral damage); and the military forces themselves (see

box on page 5). 

Complicating military options is the fact

that adversaries, or the targets of preemption,

are taking actions to constrain the U.S. ability

to preempt. These enemy actions are designed

to defeat the military effects of preemption,

essentially eliminating the opportunity for

surprise or raising costs to an unacceptable

level. For example, adversaries may embed a

target within commercial activities, cloak it in

denial-deception operations, put it underground, conceal it, make it mobile, or embed it

in populated areas that make it difficult to

target without substantial collateral damage.

Aided by the globalization of technology, 

adversaries are working to frustrate American

precision-guided munitions. To be effective in

such circumstances requires an extraordinary

degree of precision, and precision strike requires intelligence collection on a scale that is

extraordinarily difficult and very costly in terms

of time and resources.18

Preemption sometimes is taken to mean

nuclear preemption. This confusion is partly a

holdover from Cold War usage and partly a

result of recent developments. The 2002 Nuclear

Posture Review (NPR)—which addressed not

only nuclear issues but also nonnuclear strike

as well as active and passive defenses—first

came into public view through selective leaks of

the classified NPR Report to Congress by critics

who focused on its nuclear aspects. More recently, the discussion of preemption against
Iraqi WMD coincided with the discussion of a

new (or repackaged) nuclear weapon to target

hard and deeply buried targets and chemical

and biological weapons.

It is an understatement to say that the

threshold of any Presidential decision for nuclear preemption would be higher than for

conventional strike. It is difficult to imagine that

a President would preempt with nuclear

weapons in other than the most dire circumstances, with no other option to prevent massive

American or allied casualties. The use of nuclear

weapons would be among the most difficult

decisions a President could make—given their

destructiveness, the breaking of the 50-plus-year

barrier to nuclear use, as well as the international opprobrium likely to follow. It would be

hard enough for any President to make the

decision to use nuclear weapons in response to

the use of WMD; deciding to preempt with

nuclear weapons would be far more difficult.

So why, some might ask, is the administration studying whether lower-yield, lowercollateral-damage, earth-penetrating nuclear

weapons—either new or revamped—should

be pursued? Administration officials argue

that their purpose is (still) largely for deterrence—so that in the mind of a rogue state

leader, it is credible that the United States

might use nuclear weapons and thus the risks

are not worth the gains. 

To What Effect?

In any assessment of the effect preemptive

action will have, both operational/military effect

and political effect are important considerations.

On the operational/military side, the 

U.S. Government needs to think through the

effectiveness of any preemptive operation in

achieving its objectives and how to measure

that effectiveness. If the overriding objective of

preemption is regime change, the measure is

fairly straightforward, though not necessarily

easy to achieve. On the other hand, if the

objective is to disarm, rather than to remove

the leadership of the adversary, the measure of

effectiveness is more temporal. Specifically, for

what period of time would a particular preemptive action prevent or delay acquisition of a

WMD capability? For example, the Israeli

attack against the Osirak reactor may have set

the Iraqi nuclear program back—it is unclear

whether by several months or several years—

but as the inspections after Operation Desert

Storm in 1991 found, the attack did not end

the Iraqi program. If anything, preemption

may have led Iraq to take a much more expanded effort, pursuing several paths to nuclear capability in parallel.19

What level of confidence is required (in

both the intelligence information and the U.S.

ability to effectively carry out the mission) to

make a decision to preempt? If, for example,

the objective were to destroy WMD, how much

must be destroyed for the preemptive action to

be considered effective—all, most, or some?

There is unlikely to be absolute confidence in

the intelligence capability to locate all of an

adversary’s WMD, or in the capability to destroy

it. Will preemption prompt the adversary to use

the remainder? And is the United States better

or worse off after such a preemptive action?

The answer depends fundamentally upon

the assumption we make about the likelihood

of use. Would a rogue leader use WMD in any

event (either early, as a last chance to save the

regime, or as the regime falls, in an effort to

inflict as much pain as possible)? If he were

going to use WMD anyway, and the United

States destroys even some of it, preemption

makes sense; but if it prompts adversary use of

WMD capability that otherwise would not have

been used, preemption would turn out to be a

bad choice. The difficulty is in knowing the

answer in advance. Are terrorists a different

case? Does the assumption “possession equals

use” apply? If so, the “better-or-worse-off”

presumption in terrorist cases would be in favor

of preemption.

Since preemptive action is unlikely to be

100 percent effective, the role defense plays in

preemption must be considered. Should defenses of all types—ballistic missile defense,

cruise missile and other air defense, defenses of

borders and ports—be put on a higher state of

alert or readiness prior to preemptive strikes?

What effect would that have on tactical surprise? And is the U.S. Government more likely

to consider preemption if it believes its defenses

No. 200, July 2003 Strategic Forum 5

Characteristics of Military Capabilities for Preemptive Action

To support preemptive options when military force is required, some portion of U.S. forces should have the following characteristics (not all forces need

every attribute):

Key Enablers

components before they fall into terrorist or rogue state hands;

defeating hardened or deeply buried facilities; and destroying

NBC weapons or agents without dispersing them.

■ Precision and accuracy to minimize collateral damage.

■ Reliability to ensure effectiveness the first time, and, in some

cases, sustainability.

■ Diversity of delivery means and weapon effects.

■ Stealth to reach targets without forewarning.

■ Responsiveness in striking targets (or boarding ships or setting

up blockades) on short notice.

■ Long range with no or minimal dependence on overflight, forward

basing, or forward access.

■ Effectiveness across the entire range of missions: blockades;

embargoes; interdicting nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC)

■ Exquisite intelligence (accurate, timely, persistent, and actionable) is required for the mission and for after-action assessment.■ Command, control, communications (C3) must be effective, timely,

and responsive to senior decisionmakers.
can be effective against any WMD capabilities

that it fails to destroy? Conversely, do limited

defenses reduce the pressure to preempt if U.S.

leaders believe that the first few adversary WMD

used could be neutralized?

With regard to the political effect, worldwide reaction to preemptive action by the United

States would depend on a number of factors:

■ What was the reason for preemptive action,

its effectiveness, and the capability used?

■ Was the level of force, if required, commensurate with the task, or was it perceived as excessive?

■ How was the action viewed under international law?

■ How effective was U.S. consultation and

intelligence sharing as the crisis ramped up?

■ What was the level of unintended damage

(including the contaminating effects of partially

destroyed WMD materials) to civilians and the

territory of others?

■ How effective was consequence management

after the fact, and what was the American role in it?

■ How effective was U.S. public diplomacy on

the issues just mentioned (what proof was offered;

how convincing was the case that preemption was

the best of a number of bad options and that it was

done in self-defense)?

■ How effective was the public diplomacy by

adversaries and others?

The reactions of allies and friends, conditioned as they would surely be by some or all of

these factors, would have consequences for

coalition building and cohesion as well as

basing rights, access, and overflight.

The United States would also have to

judge the policy effect of the message to the

next potential adversary, as well as whether

others—such as China versus Taiwan, or India

and Pakistan—would see U.S. preemption

policy as a green light for their own preemptive

actions—or at least as rhetorical cover. The

administration was obviously cognizant of the

“precedent for other nations” criticism. National Security Advisor Rice has stated, “But

this approach must be treated with great caution. . . . It does not give a green light—to the

United States or any other nation—to act first

without exhausting other means, including

diplomacy.... The threat must be very grave.

And the risks of waiting must far outweigh the

risks of action.”20 This statement implies that

the bar is set high, but administration statements are vague about the conditions under

which preemption would be undertaken and

what the decision factors should be.

Why Talk about It?

Although preemption as an option is not

new, the level of public discussion of it by

American officials is. Previously, preemption

had been discussed internally in defense or

policy circles and very little externally. If other

administrations have had the quiet option for

preemption, why has this administration talked

about it so publicly, and even written it explicitly into its National Security Strategy?

What effect does public discussion of

preemption by U.S. officials—either generally

or specifically, in peacetime and in crisis—have

on friends as well as on potential adversaries?

There are both advantages and disadvantages of

U.S. officials talking publicly about preemption.

Discussion might signal a new seriousness

in dealing with WMD and terrorism that will

strengthen deterrence. Could discussion, for

instance, have a deterrent effect on states that

might let WMD fall into the hands of terrorists—especially if the weapons might be traced

to them and they were held accountable? Might

it make rogue states hesitate before an aggressive action that might be used to justify preemption? Might it send a message to rogue

states that their continued existence depends on

whatever WMD capabilities they may have not

falling into the hands of terrorist groups,

whether voluntarily or involuntarily?

While it may dissuade or deter rogue state

brandishing of WMD, U.S. talk of preemption

could, on the other hand, make rogue states

more determined to acquire or maintain

WMD, in order to make Americans think long

and hard about the costs of preemption or

regime change against them, as well as to work

even harder to hide or disperse those capabilities or leaders against whom they think preemptive action might be taken. This concern

appears to be animating North Korean determination to acquire nuclear weapons despite

international opprobrium.

Public discussion of preemption may also

be seen by the administration as opening a

critical debate necessary to prepare the public

for use of force in ways not previously thought

to be consonant with the American sense of

fairness. There is a public presumption (and

even a military presumption) that “good guys

don’t preempt,” which some believe, in the new

security environment, stands as an inappropriate restraint on U.S. action. So the President or

his advisors may have decided that it is necessary to engage in this public debate in order to

prepare the intellectual groundwork (both

internationally and domestically) that would

otherwise make the use of preemptive options,

if not impossible, then exceedingly difficult.

Secretary Rumsfeld has observed:

It is difficult for all of us who have grown up in

this country and believed in the principle that

unless attacked, one does not attack... for the

most part, our country has had a view that that

was the way we do things. It was other countries

that have attacked us for the most part and

initiated conflicts. The question, though, is in the

21st century, with biological weapons, for example, that could kill hundreds of thousands of

people, what does one do? Does one wait until

they’re attacked?...There is no doubt in my

mind, but that the overwhelming majority of the

American people would prefer that their government take the kinds of steps necessary to prevent

that type of attack.

21

Officials in other nations have also discussed the issue of preemptive action. Australian Prime Minister John Howard observed,

“It stands to reason that if you believe that

somebody was going to launch an attack on

your country, either of a conventional kind or a

terrorist kind, and you had a capacity to stop it

and there was no alternative other than to use

that capacity, then of course you would have to

use it.”22 He also reportedly said that he would

like to see the United Nations Charter changed

to allow preemptive action against terrorists.

The French government document issued

in January for its 2003–2008 military program

addressed preemption as well: “We must . . . be

prepared to identify and forestall threats as

soon as possible. In this context, the possibility

of preemptive action might be considered, from

the time that an explicit and confirmed threatening situation is identified”23

In Japan, which has been reluctant since

World War II even to contemplate taking actions

except in self-defense, Japan Defense Agency

Director General Shigeru Ishiba said in January:

If North Korea expresses the intention of turning

Tokyo into a sea of fire and if it begins preparations [to attack], for instance by fueling [its

missiles], we will consider [North Korea] is

initiating [a military attack].... Once North

Korea declares it will demolish Tokyo and begins

preparing for a missile launch, we will consider

it the start of a military attack against Japan.

24

6 Strategic Forum No. 200, July 2003
Ishiba later stressed that, even with

Japan’s Peace Constitution, “Just to be on the

receiving end of the attack is not what our

constitution had in mind.... Just to wait for

another country’s attack and lose thousands

and tens of thousands of people, that is not

what the constitution assumes.”25

Public discussion of American preemption

may also alienate friends as well as warn

enemies. Some have expressed concern that the

public debate has a strategic consequence of

complicating relationships with some allies

and coalition partners. Talk of preemption may

have exacerbated what some countries see as a

U.S. tendency toward unilateralism and acting

above the law and international norms. A

German editorialist called the doctrine “immature, even dangerous . . . it is the law of the

strongest.”26 Others have expressed concern

that by stating the threat to take preemptive

action, it sounds as if America is threatening to

execute a “series of Pearl Harbors”—and that,

if what the United States is trying to do is to

create a consensus as to what is right and what

is wrong, the result could be the opposite.

Much of the debate over preemption

confuses threats of preemption with preemptive

operations—that is, talking about it versus

actually doing it. A preemptive threat may

actually complicate a preemptive operation by

undercutting the element of surprise. With

regard to terrorist and rogue state adversaries,

public talk of preemption may encourage them

to redouble efforts to hide, disperse, or quickly

use WMD capabilities that they anticipate may

be the targets of preemptive action. Indeed,

there may be a tradeoff between the operational

pluses of surprise versus the political downsides

of not having built the case and influenced

public opinion before preemptive action (keeping in mind the distinction between tactical

and strategic surprise). When the Defense

Secretary was asked, “Is the United States

contemplating preemptive strikes against other

nations’ WMD holdings?” Rumsfeld replied,

“On the record. Why would anyone answer that

question if they were contemplating it?”27

Option or Doctrine?

An important issue for the national security community is whether preemption, which

was treated as merely an option in the past,

has been raised to the level of a doctrine by 

the Bush administration. The President himself said in remarks (perhaps impromptu) on

June 14, 2002:

I was at West Point the other day and I was honored to give a graduation speech where I laid out

a new doctrine [emphasis added] called preemption. . . . In the past, we used to have a doctrine

called containment and deterrence. You can’t

contain a shadowy terrorist network. You can’t

deter somebody who doesn’t have a country. And

you’re not going to be able—future Presidents

won’t be able to deter or contain one of these

nations which harbors weapons of mass destruction, nations who hate America.

28

This statement sounded like the death

knell for previous doctrines. However, Secretary

of State Colin Powell, responding to Congressional questions, observed that it is not “as if all

other strategies and doctrines have gone away

and suddenly preemption is the only strategy

doctrine. That’s just not the case.”29 Equally,

Rice has made clear that “The National Security

Strategy does not overturn five decades of

doctrine and jettison either containment or

deterrence. These strategic concepts can and will

continue to be employed where appropriate.”30

The question of “option or doctrine” is not

purely a semantic distinction. To call preemption a doctrine implies that it is a central organizing principle for marshalling the instruments of national power in support of national

objectives and that in relevant cases, action will

be taken in accordance with established governing principles. Seen in this light, the recent use

of force against Iraq may be the first application of a new doctrine of preemptive action.31

On the other hand, preemption may have been

an option employed in that specific situation,

without its rising to the level of doctrine. With

respect to North Korea, the administration has

downplayed the idea that Pyongyang’s recently

disclosed nuclear program constitutes a crisis or

that military force might be required, and it has

insisted that a diplomatic solution is possible.

This inconsistency could lead to the conclusion

that since preemption has not been chosen in

all cases where it conceivably applies, it must

not be a doctrine. But the administration also

reportedly moved B–52s and B–1s to Guam so

that they would be available for military options

in North Korea—one of which might be preemptive action. Probably only in hindsight,

with historical perspective, will we be able to

judge the administration’s application of the

concept of preemption.

Criteria

The National Security Strategy is notably

silent on the issue of what, if any, decision

criteria our national leadership would apply in

considering the possibility of preemptive military action to counter WMD. Perhaps public

elaboration of such criteria was too much to

ask—given the sensitivity of the issue—but

silence begs the question: Is there a roadmap

that can be seriously considered or used?

Over a decade ago, Michèle Flournoy and

Philip Zelikow, as part of the early debate on

counterproliferation, developed a lengthy set of

questions, which include the following points

that still serve as a useful guide to decisions

about preemption:

1. Do we have less than high confidence that

we can deter a given country from using [nuclear,

biological, or chemical] weapons against U.S., our

allies, and our interests?

2. Do we believe that the country might

transfer the capabilities to others who might use

them?

3. Will the mere acquisition by this country

of WMD significantly increase the danger of war or

coercion or attack that would threaten our interests?

If the answer to any of these three is yes, then the

next question is:

4. Are we confident that these dangers can be

significantly dealt with short of preemption? If not,

then we go down the list.

5. Do the actions and behavior of the country

ethically and legally justify offensive military action

by the United States?

6. What kind of public reaction—domestic

and foreign—can we anticipate? And if highly

negative, would it be prohibitive, or is it something

we’d be willing to weather criticism for?

7. Can military action contain or eliminate

the danger without risking either retaliation or

unintended consequences that would pose an even

greater risk to our interests? Is preemption worth the

risk of the response?

8. Do we know enough about the adversary’s

capabilities, their defenses, and their operations, to

actually launch a strike that will be effective with

high confidence of success and with acceptable

levels of collateral damage?

9. Can we do it? Do we have the military and

intelligence capabilities to pull it off?

10. Looking strategically at the long-term

implications, what precedents does this action set?

Do the anticipated benefits outweigh the costs and

conversely, are we willing to live with not preempting in a given case? Are we willing to live with a

given country having a capability that could be

used in the future?32

No. 200, July 2003 Strategic Forum 7
These questions are as relevant today as

they were 10 years ago. While the first several

questions focus on countries—nonstate terrorists were not as great a concern then as now—

they can be adapted to apply to terrorist groups

as well as rogue states. The key question will be

how great is the danger, but it is also important

to ask whether the dangers can be dealt with in

other ways, whether the actions ethically and

legally justify U.S. military action, and whether

the United States has the intelligence and

military capabilities to be effective with high

confidence of success and acceptable levels of

unintended damage.

The 10 questions above are a starting

point for decisionmakers and may also help the

public think through preemption. Answers

from today’s perspective may differ from the

day-after perspective; that is, if in fact WMD

had already been used against the United States

or American forces or allies with many thousands of casualties, would leaders and the

public have a different perspective on the

advisability and the desirability of preemption?

These points are geared to thinking about

when military preemption might be appropriate, although they could be adapted to nonmilitary preemptive action as well. However, military preemption will be more difficult to justify

than nonmilitary options. Adopting some

version of these considerations as criteria for

preemption might reduce the apprehension

and misperceptions about administration

policy, because when these factors are seriously

weighed, there are likely to be few cases where

the preemptive use of military strikes will be

chosen as the best option. 

Looking beyond Iraq, it is difficult to

predict whether preemptive military action

will be the doctrine of the future or a seldomused option. The challenge here is somewhat

like divining the future of case law, in which

established practice is created step by step and

can only be understood by looking backward,

not forward.

Clearly, the United States is feeling its way

carefully as it goes along. The recent U.S. focus

on preemption was born of a defensive reaction

in the face of emerging threats. If used too

frequently, without good justification, and with

ill effect, America is more likely to be increasingly viewed as an arrogant nation carrying

out the “law of the strongest.” Used judiciously,

with good reason, and effectively—only in the

toughest cases—preemption is likely to be

accepted, if somewhat grudgingly, by the international community.

Notes1

William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson, “Whether to

‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle’: The United States and the

Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960–64,” International Security 25,

no. 3 (Winter 2000/2001), 54–99. 2

Anatoli I. Gribkov and William Y. Smith, Operation

ANADYR: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile

Crisis (Chicago: Edition q, 1994).

3

Richard J. Newman, “The Qadhafi Question,” U.S.

News and World Report, April 15, 1996, 15. 4

Ashton B. Carter, “Three Crises with North Korea,”

prepared testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 4, 2003. 5

Rebecca Grant, “Osirak and Beyond,” Air Force

Magazine, August 2002, 74. Grant cites a statement issued by the

official Iraqi news agency following the 1980 Iranian bombing of

Osirak: “The Iranian people should not fear the Iraqi nuclear

reactor, which is not intended to be used against Iran, but

against the Zionist entity.” 6

Anthony Clark Arend, “International Law and the

Preemptive Use of Military Force,” The Washington Quarterly

26, no. 2 (Spring 2003), 89. 7

Donald H. Rumsfeld, “21st Century Transformation 

of U.S. Armed Forces,” presentation at the National Defense

University, Washington, DC, January 31, 2002. 8

George W. Bush, remarks at the National Defense

University, Washington, DC, May 1, 2001. 9

George W. Bush, remarks at The Citadel, September 23,

1999. 10 Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review

Report (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, September 30,

2001), particularly Chapter VIII: Statement of the Chairman of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 11 See Walter B. Slocombe, “Force, Pre-emption and

Legitimacy,” Survival 45, no. 1 (Spring 2003), 123. 12 Condoleezza Rice, remarks on the President’s National

Security Strategy, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, NY, October

1, 2002. 13 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic

Books, 1977), 81. 14 David E. Sanger, “Bush to Formalize a Defense Policy of

Hitting First,” The New York Times, June 17, 2002. 15 The Office of Homeland Security, The National Strategy

for Homeland Security, July 2002, accessed at <http://www.

whitehouse.gov/homeland/book/nat_strat_hls.pdf>, 16. 16 The National Strategy for Homeland Security, 43. 17 In that case, it was determined the vessel was bound for

Yemen. The Yemeni government asserted that the missiles were

legally purchased, and the United States decided that there was

no clear authority to hold the ship or prevent it from delivering

the missiles. 18 See Slocombe, “Force, Preemption and Legitimacy,”

126: “The problem with pre-emption, unfortunately, is not lack

of legal legitimacy, but operational practicality. . . Precision

weapons require precision intelligence, and pre-emption requires

that intelligence be comprehensive as well as precise.” 19 See Marc Dean Millot, “Facing the Emerging Reality of

Regional Nuclear Adversaries,” The Washington Quarterly 17,

no. 3 (Summer 1994), 41. See also David A. Kay, “Denial and

Deception Practices of WMD Proliferators: Iraq and Beyond,” The

Washington Quarterly 18, no. 1 (Winter 1995), 83. 20 Rice, remarks on the President’s National Security

Strategy, October 1, 2002. 21 Donald H. Rumsfeld, Department of Defense Regular

News Briefing, January 29, 2003, accessed at <http://www.

defenselink.mil/news/Jan2003/t01292003_t0129sd.html>. 22 John Shaw, “Startling His Neighbors, Australian Leader

Favors First Strikes,” The New York Times, December 2, 2002, A11. 23 LOI n° 2003–73 du 27 janvier 2003 relative à la

programmation militaire pour les années 2003 à 2008 (1),

section 2.3.1, accessed at <http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/

WAspad/Visu?cid=328577&indice=1&table=JORF&ligneDeb=1>. 24 “Ishiba: Japan to ‘Counterattack’ If N. Korea Prepares to

Attack,” The Yomiuri Shimbun/Daily Yomiuri, January 25, 2003. 25 James Brooke, “Japanese Official Wants Defense Against

Missiles Expanded,” The New York Times, April 17, 2003, 13. 26 Wolfgang Koydl, “The Law of the Strongest,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung, June 3, 2002 (as translated by the Department

of State “Foreign Media Reaction Early Report,” June 13, 2002). 27 Donald H. Rumsfeld, meeting with the editorial board of

The Washington Post, June 3, 2002, accessed at <http://www.

defenselink.mil/news/Jun2002/t06042002_t0603edb.html>. 28 George W. Bush, remarks at Texans for Rick Perry

Reception, Houston, TX, June 14, 2002, accessed at <http://www.

whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020614-8.html>. 29 Hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

on Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, Washington, DC,

July 9, 2002. 30 Rice, remarks on the President’s National Security

Strategy, October 1, 2002. 31 On the other hand, some argue that it was not preemption, but a continuation of the 1991 Gulf War that ended with a

ceasefire and conditions that Iraq failed to meet. 32 Drawn from chapters by Michèle A. Flournoy and Philip

Zelikow in New Nuclear Nations: Consequences for U.S.

Policy, ed. Robert D. Blackwill and Albert Carnesale (New York:

Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993), as well as more

recent statements by Flournoy.

8 Strategic Forum No. 200, July 2003

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