Anticipatory Attacks: Nuclear Crisis Stability in Future Asia

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Anticipatory attack includes both preemptive and preventive attacks. Anticipatory attacks cannot be excluded as options for policymakers and military planners. On the other hand, preemption and preventive options must be used with care. Even when they are employed with favorable military results, anticipatory attacks can have undesirable political side effects. Nuclear anticipatory attacks raise issues in addition to conventional ones. Deterrence based on preemptive threat of nuclear attack is less fault-tolerant than deterrence based on the threat of conventional preemption.