Inspired by my recent purchase of Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival (an act itself inspired by the recent interview he gave), I took a gander at the National Security Strategy of the United States (as published by the Bush administration in September of 2002). Particularly interesting is Section V (“Prevent Our Enemies from Threatening Us, Our Allies, and Our Friends with Weapons of Mass Destruction”), which outlines the U.S. doctrine of preemptive war.
Quoting from the Section V of the National Security Strategy:
“The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. 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.
The United States will not use force in all cases to preempt emerging threats, nor should nations use preemption as a pretext for aggression. Yet in an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather.”
With this strategy, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq. According to the administration, action against Iraq was justified because the constituted an “imminent threat” to the security of the United States by virtue of their possession of WMD. Thus, the United States was determined to take preemptive action to neturalize the Iraqi threat in accordance with the current National Security Strategy.
However, after the invasion was completed and no WMD were found, the rhetoric and justification for the war has shifted away from the “imminent threat” argument and bifurcated along two major lines. One is idealistic – the war was justified because we gave freedom to the Iraqi people. The second is a refactored version of the preemptive war doctrine – invading Iraq was justified not because they were in fact an imminent threat, but because they possessed the capability and potentiality to become one at some future date. In other words, the National Security Strategy was now being used to justify military action that was not so much preemptive as preventative – what Chomsky terms “anticipatory self-defense”. Iraq’s actions around WMD were termed irrelevant; all that mattered was their intent to create them.
Chomsky provides a great summary of the effect of this strategic shift:
“Virtually any country has the potential and ability to produce WMD, and intent is in the eye of the beholder. Hence the refined version of the grand strategy effectively grants Washington the right of arbitrary aggression. Lowering the bar for the resort to force is the most significant consequence of the collapse of the proclaimed argument for the invasion.”
Perhaps this is why 86.9% of respondents to a 2003 Time Europe poll picked the United States at the greatest threat to world peace in 2003.
