The New National Security Strategy and Preemption. Building on a concept he articulated in a June 2. West Point, President George W. Bush has adopted a new emphasis on preemption in his administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS), issued September 2. A strong world economy enhances our national security by advancing prosperity and freedom in the rest of the world. Economic growth supported by free trade and free markets creates new jobs and higher incomes. La National Security Agency (NSA, « Agence nationale de la s The National Security Strategy (NSS) is a document prepared periodically by the executive branch of the government of the United States for Congress which outlines the major national security concerns of the United States and. In his first State of the Union address, President George W. Bush focuses on the United States’ response to the September 11th events. He credits the United States military with having suppressed terrorist activity in. Preemption, defined as the anticipatory use of force in the face of an imminent attack, has long been accepted as legitimate and appropriate under international law. In the new NSS, however, the administration is broadening the meaning to encompass preventive war as well, in which force may be used even without evidence of an imminent attack to ensure that a serious threat to the United States does not “gather” or grow over time. The strategy also elevates preemption in importance, and visibility, within the tool kit of U. S. POLICY BRIEF #1. The new shift in emphasis on preemptive and preventive uses of force is a response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. National Security Presidential Directives . Bush Administration In the George W. Bush Administration, the directives that are used to promulgate Presidential decisions on national security matters are designated. 107-792: Report Of The Joint Inquiry Into The Terrorist Attacks Of September 11, 2001 - DECLASSIFIED Part Four Dec 2002, Released; Country Reports on Terrorism. An America Built to Last. President Obama is working to build a country and an economy where we reward hard work, value fairness, and where everyone is held accountable for what they do. He is meeting the challenges we face as. National Security Council. The National Security Council (NSC) is the President's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. National strategy for Homeland security Homeland security council october 2007. The first manifestation of this more forceful attitude was the president’s seminal Sept. Congress vowing to hold responsible the terrorists as well as those who harbor them. It paved the way for a largely successful military campaign in Afghanistan and sent a clear warning to other state sponsors of terrorism. The preemption concept was further elaborated in the president’s West Point speech and then more formally in the National Security Strategy. It threatens to attack so- called rogue states, which pose a danger to the United States, whether or not they are demonstrably linked to terrorist organizations of global reach. The administration argues that the continued spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technology to states with a history of aggression creates an unacceptable level of risk, and presents “a compelling case for taking anticipatory actions to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack.”However, a broad- based doctrine of preemption carries serious risks. The Bush administration was right to take a strong stand against terrorists and extremist states, but it had already accomplished this goal with its early words in the period after the September 1. Afghanistan. It did not need a formal doctrine of preemption to drive the point home. Rather than enunciate a formal new doctrine, it would have been better to continue to reserve the preemptive military tool for a narrow, rare class of situations where inaction poses a credible risk of large scale, irreversible harm and where other policy tools offer a poor prospect of success. Given that the doctrine has now been promulgated, the Bush administration should clarify and limit the conditions under which it might be applied. Get daily updates from Brookings. Elevating the preemptive option to a policy doctrine can have serious negative consequences. For one, it reinforces the image of the United States as too quick to use military force and to do so outside the bounds of international law and legitimacy. This can make it more difficult for the United States to gain international support for its use of force, and over the long term, may lead others to resist U. S. Elevating preemption to the level of a formal doctrine may also increase the administration’s inclination to reach for the military lever quickly, when other tools still have a good chance of working. Advocating preemption warns potential enemies to hide the very assets we might wish to take preemptive action against, or to otherwise prepare responses and defenses. Die National Security Strategy (NSS) der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika vom September 2002 ist Teil regelmIn this tactical sense, talking too openly about preemption reduces its likely utility, if and when it is employed. Finally, advocating preemption may well embolden other countries that would like to justify attacks on their enemies as preemptive in nature. One can argue that a more explicit policy of preemption actually reinforces deterrence by putting other countries on notice about America’s seriousness of purpose in addressing threats such as the possession of weapons of mass destruction by rogue regimes. It also allows the administration to argue that its focus on Iraq is part of a broader security concept and does not represent preoccupation with a specific regime. However, linking the real problem of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to a broader doctrine of preemption (defined to include preventive war) complicated the administration’s task in gaining international support for its preferred policy, and may do so again if the administration chooses to use force against Iraq. Many countries worry that the Bush administration will take a similar approach in dealing with other cases such as North Korea or Iran or Syria. Further, other countries’ frustration with the United States’ decision to grant to itself, (though not to others), a right of preemption may chill their willingness to cooperate fully with the United States in the war on terrorism. The Strategy’s Concept of Preemption. President Bush’s cover letter to the September 2. National Security Strategy describes the most serious threats facing the United States and the means that will be used to address them. Notably, he writes, “. The concept is not limited to the traditional definition of preemption. The idea principally appears to be directed at terrorist groups as well as extremist or “rogue” nation states; the two are linked, according to the strategy, by a combination of “radicalism and technology.”The administration asserts that deterrence of the kind that prevailed during the cold war is unlikely to work with respect to rogue states and terrorists. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.“The United States will not use force in all cases to preempt emerging threats, nor should nations use preemption as a pretext for aggression. Yet in an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather.”Although overlooked by many critics, the strategy does not abandon the notion of deterrence. For example, one of the four key purposes of U. S. The rationale for the shift appears to be twofold: to deal with actors who cannot be reliably deterred, and to address the enormous threat posed by the spread of WMD. Preemption, narrowly defined, has long been an important and widely accepted policy option for the United States. But the Bush administration argues that preemption must be extended to include “preventive” attacks even in the absence of an imminent threat. Prevention is a far less accepted concept in international law, even though the United States has threatened or utilized it in previous eras as well, and even though it may be a necessary tool at times. For example, in 1. Pyongyang’s awareness that the United States might destroy North Korea’s capacity to produce fissile materials may have contributed to the subsequent Agreed Framework by which North Korea capped its large- scale nuclear program. But such threats are more problematic in the case of a concealed “basement bomb” program that U. S. Given the stealthy nature of the actors, it is unlikely that specific attacks can be identified in advance. So these groups’ past practices and explicit statements provide an adequate substitute for the traditional doctrine’s requirement for imminent threat. Less clear is the need for an expanded approach with respect to rogue states. One problem is that the Strategy fails to distinguish between eliminating dangerous capabilities and overthrowing dangerous regimes. Even the unilateral use of force to eliminate dangerous WMD is controversial, as can be seen from the broad international condemnation of Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirek nuclear reactor in 1. Pursuing regime change has broad consequences for the overall stability of the international system and is thus even less accepted as a legitimate objective than eliminating weapons of mass destruction. And a preventive regime change strategy may trigger the very use of WMD that the strategy seeks to preclude. But going after capabilities under many circumstances is likely to achieve limited results at best, as can be seen in the Clinton administration’s “Desert Fox” attack on Iraq’s WMD infrastructure in 1. Saddam Hussein. On balance, policy should not rule out regime change in extreme cases, but it should only be considered when there are no alternative means of eliminating unusually dangerous capabilities. In this regard, the administration’s shift of focus from overthrowing Saddam Hussein to disarming Iraq has substantially increased international support for U. S. First, it undervalues the still important role of deterrence, even against so- called rogue states such as Iraq and North Korea. Second, it legitimates a wider scope for the use of force. As the State Department’s annual report on terrorism makes clear, for example, most rogue states are actually diminishing their active support for terrorism, perhaps partly in response to President Bush’s recent threats. That is not because they have all reformed their ways, but because deterrence tends to work against even brutal autocrats, who tend to value highly their hold on power and their lives. Rather, the first line of defense should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence. It clearly has shown a willingness to flout international norms and agreements, as underscored by its recent admission of a secret nuclear weapons program. But that program probably reflects an effort either to extort money from the outside world or to deter attack.
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