Preventive and Preemptive Self-Defense in US National Security Policy: A Brief History

Abstract

This chapter will argue that the strategy of prevention/preemption, which was stipulated in the Bush doctrine and continued to a large extent in the counterterrorism measures employed by the Obama administration, did not necessarily signify an unparalleled innovation in US national security policy. Preemption/prevention considerations have been an unequivocal element of US counterproliferation policy since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, it is evident that the core theoretical thrust underpinning the Bush doctrine, and specifically, the preventive motivation for war, has long been an intrinsic part of the strategic thought of policymakers, officials and military planners at the highest levels of the US government. While it has often been depicted as a distinct and markedly new national security strategy, the Bush doctrine was, in fact, neither new nor era defining. As Peter Lavoy argues, the Bush administration’s “new” strategy read much like “old wine in a new bottle” and hardly represented the fundamental policy shift that many portend.1