MGMT6013 Managing Information System: Conduct A Preemptive Attack

Preemptive Strikes

We have read both sides of the issue of whether or not the United States is justified in conducting preemptive strikes. But really, this is about us making decisions for ourselves and justifying it (or not) to the rest of the world.

For this assignment, you will need to take off your American hat and take a new job at the United Nations. Your job is to create a standard a set of conditions if you will under which any nation in the world may conduct a preemptive attack. What would those conditions be?

Use the cases you have read to write your conditions. They may be more or less strict than the conditions we have explored, but you may not argue that there are no conditions. You will need to also use the United Nations Charter to see exactly where your standards would fit.

The Charter can be found at http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/

Answer:

Standards that permit any nation to conduct a preemptive attack

A preemptive attack may be defined as an attack that is initiated by a nation in order to prevent a perceived imminent offensive invasion or to gain an advantage in an imminent inevitable attack abruptly prior to the occurrence of such imminent attack. A preemptive attack is usually conducted when there is an anticipation of any imminent aggression on part of the other nation (Glad & Dolan, 2016).

There are certain customary legislations relating to the preemptive attack which is primarily based on the Caroline Affair, an attack that the US conducted in Canada in the year 1837. The Caroline test is a 19^th century creation of customary international law which was further reaffirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal after the World War II. According to the test, a preemptive strike is justified only if the threat is overwhelming, imminent leaving no options of means and deliberation. The UN Charter has established an institutional structure which regulates the use of force by replacing the unilateral uses of force with the collective use of force under circumstances where there is a necessity to conduct such strikes (Simunovic, Mifunen & Yamagishi, 2013). The conditions are incorporated under Article 39 of the UN Charter which includes a threat to the peace or an aggressive act or violation of peace.

Further, according to Article 42 of the UN Charter entails conditions which permit application of the institutional force under two essential conditions. Firstly, if the non-forcible measures that are laid down under Article 41 of the UN Charter proves to be inadequate. Secondly, the application of force is considered to be necessary to maintain or reinstate international security and peace (Warren & Bode, 2014). To restore the international peace and law and order is the ultimate objective of the United Nation. Therefore, the standards that would enable any nation to conduct preemptive attacks would include an imminent overwhelming necessity leaving no other means or opportunities for deliberation.

The states right to strike first in self-defense against any anticipatory imminent attack or threat. Under such circumstances, the state must justify that such attack was a necessity to reinstate or maintaining peace (Warren & Bode, 2014). This condition would be consistent with the requirement laid down under Article 41 of the UN Charter. The second standard requires that the preemptive strike must be proportionate to the imminent threat against which the strike is commenced. During the Vietnam era, the United States defended its preemptive attacks on the ground that North Vietnam attacked it twice with gunboats. However, the Defense Secretary asserted that the attacks used as defense never actually occurred and neither the attack was imminent, overwhelming and had no option of deliberation.

To conclude, the concept of necessity entails both an impending threat and exhaustion of the non-violent and peaceful remedies, thus complying with the requirements laid down under Article 39, 41 and 42 of the UN Charter. Therefore, the application of preemptive strikes can be justified under circumstances where there is an imminent and overwhelming necessity to maintain the security and peace of the country and to prevent the subjects of the nation who applies the preemptive strikes in the form of self defense.

References

Glad, B., & Dolan, C. (Eds.). (2016). Striking First: The Pre-emption and Preventive War Doctrines and the Reshaping of US Foreign Policy. Springer

Simunovic, D., Mifune, N., & Yamagishi, T. (2013). Preemptive strike: An experimental study of fear-based aggression. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(6), 1120-1123.

Warren, A., & Bode, I. (2014). Preventive and Preemptive Self-Defense in US National Security Policy: A Brief History. In Governing the Use-of-Force in International Relations (pp. 46-59). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Warren, A., & Bode, I. (2014). Governing the use-of-force in international relations: The post 9/11 US challenge on international law. Springer.