Preventive and Preemptive Actions

Preemptive Military Action. In wartime, one strategy is to try to destroy enemy WMD before the weapons can be used. This strategy is known as preemption. Successful preemptive actions are very difficult to execute, however, because countries developing WMD are hiding their activities more effectively than ever before. They are also protecting their WMD facilities against attack by building them deep underground, making them harder to destroy.

Two enemy strategies are particularly hard to counter. One is to place missiles carrying WMD on special trailer-trucks, known as mobile launchers. This tactic allows missiles to be kept in hiding until just before they are launched. The other is to place WMD facilities and storage areas in bomb-resistant underground bunkers. For example, during the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq used mobile launchers for its short-range Scud missiles. None of these missiles, however, is believed to have carried WMD. The United States was not able to destroy a single Iraqi Scud on the ground, although it devoted much effort to the task, and many Iraqi missiles were launched against Israel and Saudi Arabia from these mobile launchers. Iraq also placed its command centers and other special military assets in hardened underground bunkers. The United States developed especially powerful conventional bombs to attack these targets and destroyed many of them.

Preventive Military Action. In peacetime, one military strategy to counter WMD proliferation is to engage in preventive military actions against a state believed to possess or to be developing WMD. The primary goal of preventive action is to eliminate any WMD or facilities related to WMD within the country before the outbreak of hostilities, and if necessary, to remove the hostile regime and replace it with a more moderate government that will be less likely to pursue WMD.

Proponents of the concept of preventive military action claim that the strategy brings two benefits. First, it eliminates the WMD program in the target country. Second, it will lead other states to realize that developing WMD programs might invite a similar attack. This will, it is argued, dissuade them from developing such weapons in the first place.

Opponents note that preventive war may produce the exact opposite result, and that some states might decide that WMD, particularly nuclear weapons, are necessary to deter other states from attacking and disarming them. For example, in a surprise attack in June 1981, the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Iraqi Osiraq nuclear reactor south of Baghdad. However, this attack appears to have been counterproductive as a nonproliferation measure. While the Israeli attack temporarily slowed Iraq's nuclear capabilities, it spurred the Iraqi leadership to start a full-fledged nuclear weapon program. After the attack, Iraq devoted many more resources to nuclear weapons research and spread out and hid its nuclear facilities. Despite a crash-program to develop a workable nuclear device by 1991--around the same time-frame of the first Gulf War--Iraq was ultimately unsuccessful in its quest to be a nuclear power.

It is unclear what effect the second war against Iraq has had on WMD programs in North Korea or Iran, but some argue that both countries have accelerated their nuclear weapons programs as a result of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Also, as no WMD have been found in Iraq, the invasion, costly in terms of both lives lost and money spent, does not appear justified on the grounds of preventing WMD proliferation.

The use of military force to deal with WMD threats has so far not been widely employed. The primary reason for this is because the burden of proof to establish that another state's WMD-activities constitute an "imminent threat" that requires a resort to force entails political costs. For example, the United States claimed its actions in Iraq were an enforcement of United Nations Resolution 1441. No comparable resolutions require Iran or North Korea to disarm or to submit to weapons inspections, although both countries have been sanctioned by the UN Security Council for activities that could be related to development of nuclear weapons. The United States would, therefore, find it difficult to cite international law to justify military actions against those countries.

The Use of Nuclear Weapons as a Counterproliferation Tool. Many believe that the United States should use nuclear weapons to destroy WMD bunkers that cannot be destroyed with conventional bombs. In 1997, the United States modified one of its existing nuclear weapons so that it could destroy underground or "hardened" targets more effectively. Some have argued that the United States should design new nuclear weapons with smaller yields specifically for this purpose. It is still unclear if any nuclear weapons, even those with small yields, can destroy these targets without contaminating the surrounding area with nuclear fallout and possibly killing many civilians.

Further Reading:

	The Nonproliferation Review, James Wirtz and James Russell, "U.S. Policy on Preventive War and Preemption"
	CRS, Richard Grimmett, "U.S. Use of Preemptive Military Force"
	CNS, "Reported Conventional Weapon Attacks on NBC Facilities in the Middle East"
	CNS, Sammy Salama and Karen Ruster, "A Preemptive Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities: Possible Consequences"
	CNS, "New Nuclear Weapons?"
	CATO Institute, Jeffrey Record, "Nuclear Deterrence, Preventive War, and Counterproliferation"
	Center for Defense Information, Steven Welsh, "Preemptive War and International Law"
	Arms Control Today, Hans Kristensen, "The Role of U.S. Nuclear Weapons: New Doctrine Falls Short of Bush Pledge"