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From Preemption to Prevention
By Henry E. Mattox, Editor
At the risk of belaboring a point, even though an important one, this observer takes to word processor to comment once again on the U.S. role in the fight against terrorism, significantly as Iraq bears on the question. In that connection, two recent publications on the Web warrant the reader's attention. One is the perceptive, somewhat lengthy article by Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis in the current issue of Foreign Affairs (see the web-site foreignaffairs.org/). The other is a recent Pew Research Center poll (see people-press.org/reports/).
To begin here with the latter, the Pew poll published December 20, 2004, points up divisions in the U. S. body politic, reflecting specifically how the American public has changed its attitude on the Iraq war over time. Back in April 2003, ninety-three percent of the Americans polled expressed the view that the conflict was going at least fairly well. By May of 2004, that same perception of the war was held by only half of the Americans polled. With a few subsequent peaks and valleys, by the end of the year just concluded poll results indicate that just over one-half of Americans had a favorable view on the course of the Iraq war; forty-six percent had the perception that it was not going well.
Americans, thus, at this writing can be said to be almost evenly divided in their opinions about the conduct of the fighting in Iraq and implicitly how it will ultimately come out. Looking back, during the undeclared wars in Korea and Vietnam of previous generations, more than one-half of the American public fairly soon became disenchanted with the aims of and necessity for those conflicts. The undeclared Iraq war does not seem to be substantially different.
As to Professor Gaddis' thoughtful essay, a central point therein is that the nation's leadership in Washington, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, made a basic change in U. S. foreign policy. He sees it as the most fundamental redesign of strategy since the days of Franklin Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. In the latter instance, the lesson learned was that oceans and distance did not guarantee safety from hostile states. Preemptive warfare against Japan thus would certainly have been in order, had Washington had knowledge of the forthcoming onslaught. During the long Cold War, the United States -- importantly with the agreement of its allies -- pursued a strategy of "containment" that included an element of preemption.
With the devastating 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, it became clear that preemptive deterrence against nation states affords insufficient protection against terrorist assaults. The world suddenly faced ill-formed dangers -- not from nations, but from terrorist groups called by Gaddis "gangs."
As he points out, the new strategy of preventive war adopted by the Bush administration has not equated with preemptive war except for action against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The "shock and awe" onslaught launched subsequently against Iraq, no matter how termed by Washington, in actuality constituted preventive war.
This is what has changed -- the new strategy of launching a preventive war against a nation that, while not threatening directly, gave the appearance of being a potential danger to the United States.
From preemption to prevention as a basic policy, that is.
Whatever legitimacy or even practicality the new strategy of prevention might have, there remains a need for understanding by and collaboration with other nation states threatened by terrorism. Taking up a radically new strategic approach, one that incorporates self-centered, debatable decision making, and pursuing that strategy alone, regardless of world opinion, ultimately would be counterproductive. Cooperation and communication with erstwhile and would-be allies is an aspect of the new strategy that has been lacking, but one that is clearly needed for success.
We can only assume the new grand strategy of prevention is here to stay. One can hope, however, that Washington policy makers at the highest levels now recognize the importance in the struggle against terrorism of cooperation with traditionally and potentially friendly peoples. If so, American policymakers and career diplomats are in for busy days and nights in coming years. Let us hope that, so engaged, they will be successful.
January 7, 2005