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Journalism of Courage
The US National Security Strategy has already spelt out the doctrine of pre-emptive use of force to deal with future and emerging threats. The US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the recent testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sought concurrence for this doctrine to be applied to Iraq. General Powell, of course, is right that pre-emption has been embedded in history. It is also true that pre-emption may be the only prudent strategy under certain circumstances. But there is a need for great care and caution in applying the principle. While the right of self-defence is enshrined in the UN Charter, pre-emptive attack on another member of the UN under this principle would remain questionable unless the issue of legitimacy is transparently clear. In the present circumstances, there is inadequate evidence of such legitimacy unless it is unambiguously authorised by the UN Security Council.
It is true that the greatest danger to peace, prosperity and security today emanates from terrorism, especially the vicious variety which is driven by religious extremist ideologies. The use of terror as an instrument of politics by other means has raised it to the level of war. The initiative in such war intrinsically rests with the terrorists, since they are able to pick the time and place of attack which then, more often than not, can only be dealt with after the event. Fighting terrorism, by its very nature, is reactive and enough data for effective pre-emptive attacks is rarely available.
