Does preemptive war fit with just war tradition?
This is a common mistake — that the [just war] ethic talks about the possibility of preemptive war. The Bush national security doctrine was not a doctrine of preemption; it was a doctrine of prevention. And the ethic is very clear that preventive war is ruled out. What’s the distinction between preemption and prevention? Preemptive war is simply when there is an imminent, grave, and visible threat. If somebody is on the verge of attacking you, you can viscerally respond with a first attack. Therefore you have to have a grave threat, it has to be imminent, and you have to have no other options available to you. It’s a defensive move. Preventive war is when you look down the long-time horizon and you say, “I have an enemy lurking out there, and I’m fearful if I wait much longer they are going to be stronger and more of a threat down the road, so I’m going to go attack them now and preventively keep them from ever attacking me in the future.” The ethic is very clear. That kind of long-te
