To Pre or not to Pre: That is the Question

Columnist Aassia Haq starts a regular column from the USA.

I’m trying to understand the current United States administration and I know I’m not the only one. To this end, I’ve downloaded and read a document called “National Security Strategy of the United States,” published by George Bush’s government. I’d recommend reading it, because it contains some important ideas that affect not only the US domestic and international agenda, but also the rest of the world.
Try and ignore the flowery language designed to appeal to what the document calls “freedom loving people across the globe and across the ages.” Poking fun at that sentence could be the subject of a whole separate column. The really important idea is this:
* The US has put into doctrine a new policy that supports and even encourages pre-emptive strikes against perceived enemies. “As a matter of common sense and self-defence, America will act against emerging threats before they are fully formed.” The document goes on to describe a foreign policy universe where “the only path to peace and security is the path of action.” It cites the logic that traditional concepts of deterrence will “not work against a terrorist enemy... whose most potent protection is statelessness.” Reactive as it is to the Sept. 11 attack, this policy fundamentally alters the rules of legitimate international use of force.
The idea of pre-emption carries dangerous inherent risks. I’m reminded of a Hollywood movie I recently saw called “The Minority Report.” The central character is the employee of a police system that catches and punishing people for acts not yet committed — essentially pre-empting their crime. The hero discovers the supposedly foolproof system has a glitch: it suppresses data that does not agree with the majority conclusion, for purposes of expediency. A so-called “minority report” is erased if it does not support the majority thesis that an accused criminal is guilty. In the system, a person could be executed for a crime he did not commit by the system that must act decisively and swiftly on a “credible” threat of criminal intent.
What if the world functioned this way? It’s not a simple question and the consequences for not just the United States, but all nation-states and people of the world, are profound. Consider the potential impact of the new US pre-emption policy on three levels: the US relationship with the world; inter or intra-state relations that do not include the United States; and finally, the domestic situation within the US itself.
The new American foreign policy of acting without clear provocation against a perceived enemy could backfire. Ultimately, decisions to act pre-emptively are based on the precious commodity called information. International relations has taught us that information is not always reliable and can be misused by parties with hidden agendas. Importantly, the current US administration has admitted a failure of intelligence gathering by its pre-eminent spy organization, the CIA. Its new policy to act decisively using military force against germinating threats, can in fact be seen as directly related to the inability to get good information on these threats in more covert ways. This is a terrible dilemma and a paradox unveiled by the pre-emption approach.
A more optimistic view of pre-emption holds that it is a necessary and compelling new tool that helps redefines international relations in a post-Cold War world where non-state players don’t abide by the generally accepted rules of conflict. “History will judge harshly those who saw the coming danger but failed to act,” states the Security Strategy document. But the world must ask this of US policy makers: is blanket-bombing nation-states the right redress to grievances created by players outside the nation-state system? Is the might of the world’s most powerful nation-state ironically being used to vent frustration at the inadequacy of the modern army to immediately crush new networks of opposition? If this carries even a grain of truth then pre-emption is a dangerous game to play — since it’s a mark of powerlessness, not power. Force as exercised by an army is not always the same as power. True power has its basis in legitimacy.
For arguments’ sake, let’s assume the US does, in fact, always have good, credible information upon which to base decisions to pre-emptively attack nations, groups with radical agendas or what it calls rogue states that have acquired Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). This scenario is a big leap of faith, but I will make it for the purposes of argument. Would this then justify the new policy? Not if we further examine the consequences of the new policy upon the relations between other nation-states or groups. Viewing the international impact of the policy is important because the depth of US power today makes it a de facto creator of international law. What the US does, others will model, whether or not the current administration likes this fact or finds it convenient.
This new policy can embolden those who would use law to suppress or destroy opposition to the status quo. Since the policy’s inception, it is no coincidence that Russia has acted decisively and brutally against the Chechnyans, Israel has escalated a campaign against the Palestinians and India has allowed a pogrom against the Muslim minority. These are not, as some in the Muslim world argue, conspiracies against Islam. However, it can be posited that these are opportunistic moves by regimes that are emboldened by the new vein of US policy. They interpret the spirit, if not the letter, of the policy laid out in the new US security strategy to mean that a threat, even if as yet fully formed, is worth acting against.
Ironically, the policy then reduces, not increases the spread of democracy and freedom — ideals enshrined in the self-same US National Security Strategy. It is for this reason that international citizens must participate in the debate about US pre-emption, for it may in impact them in the future whether or not they directly deal with America.
All policy starts out as theoretical. The test is what happens when it is practically applied. Once this new pre-emption approach is fully legitimized, aggrandizing nations, or ethnic groups in positions of power, won’t even need to bother explaining why they are striking out against their own minorities or disenfranchised. The idea of action — upon which this new policy is based — is superior to the need for justification. “Act now ...(and justify or cover-up later)” is where pre-emption ends up when it becomes real and leaves the hallowed halls of US conservative think-tanks where it was born. For every success achieved when pre-emption works in its theoretically-perfect form, the world must ask: What is the cost of inevitable failures of pre-emption on a real, often ugly, world stage? This should be debated in the courts of international opinion.
Let’s finally examine whether the policy has an impact domestically in America. I’d argue it does. The actions of right-wing Attorney General John Ashcroft are a perfect example of the domestic spirit of pre-emption. He is acting decisively to use the Department of Justice to round up and deport or detain Muslim men because he believes this is a good way to contain future terrorist threats on US soil. The jury is sceptical on this point since it appears no terrorists have actually been found. It’s terribly dangerous for the US to allow itself to go down Mr. Ashcroft’s chosen path, not because of the view that it will alienate Muslims and create more terrorists, as some argue. That’s beside the point. Domestic pre-emption presumes that all US residents, including citizens, are enemies of the state until proven otherwise, in violation of a basic principle of US law: Innocent until proven guilty. Lawyers in the US are up in arms against this shift, but it’s hard to fight the administration that says it’s in a state of war and needs to subvert the rules of peacetime to win.
Ultimately, it’s a watch-and-wait sort of situation for the whole world, isn’t it? A new policy has been proclaimed by a powerful nation, but history has not yet fully judged it. While we do not yet have the benefit of hindsight, there is a dangerous optimism that underlies the notion of pre-emption whether applied in Iraq or Detroit. This dangerous optimism holds that a policy can be controlled - to only allow for pre-determined uses. This is where the logic of pre-emption breaks down. The Cold War though bloodless for the main fighters - the US and the Soviet Union - mutually assured destruction for many other small nations. The proxy war became an acceptable outcome of the deterrence strategy proclaimed by the two great powers. In this new policy doctrine, it remains to be seen what the hidden outcomes will be. My fear is there will be many - and they will be not clean but bloody. Preempt that.

About the Author
Aassia Haroon Haq is a strategic communications, marketing and public relations professional with a US corporation. She is a freelance opinion writer and journalist. Comments can be sent to: aassiah@hotmail.com