Preventive war

Preventive war ( French préventif , from the Latin praevenio - I ’m advancing, warning) is a war that is launched, believing that a future conflict is inevitable, and whose main goal is to get ahead of aggressive actions on the part of the enemy.

They begin a preventive war in order to prevent the enemy from changing the balance of forces in their favor. Because of the threat of speculation as preventive wars, international law considers these wars to be acts of aggression . It is often hard to understand if war is aggression or preventive action.

Content

Preventive Self-Defense

A preemptive strike involves a strike against sources of impending danger. A preemptive strike, in turn, involves an armed strike in the presence of a clear, imminent threat. There is a concept close to the concept of “preventive strike”, namely “preemptive striking” or “preemptive striking”. Terms should not be mixed, as they reflect different concepts, although the line is often difficult to distinguish.

Until recently, there were two points of view on the content of the right to self-defense. If you strictly follow the UN Charter and its 51 articles, then preventive strikes are a violation of international law. But now the countries of the world community are already using military force in a preventive manner. ^[one]

Proponents of the right to proactive self-defense ^[2] believe that Article 51 should be interpreted in the context of the functioning of the UN , as well as in the light of the goals of self-defense in general, which consists in preventing aggression by enabling states to protect themselves before the UN intervenes, and not to provide freedom of action, initiative and time advantage to the attacking state and further complicate the position of the target country. ^[one]

According to the UN Charter, the right to self-defense arises in response to an armed attack, and although the Charter does not explicitly state that such an attack is committed only by the state, the authors of this agreement did not foresee any other option. ^[one]

The US national security strategy , the so-called " Bush Doctrine, " offers a third option. The main provisions of the doctrine, published in 2002, proclaimed the need "in a new way" to ensure US security. The central element of Washington’s foreign policy concept is a preemptive / anticipatory / anticipatory strike, which justifies the right of the United States to deliver such a strike against anyone who is considered to be at least potentially dangerous. ^[3]

Criticism

A number of prominent scientists, including J. Kunz, F. Jessop, X. Lauterpacht, J. Brownley, L. Henkin, R. Ago, A. Randelshofer, deny the possibility of using proactive self-defense. ^[one]

Some believe that preventive war is not legally different from aggression and is the “highest crime”. Dwight Eisenhower believed that a preventive war is impossible in the nuclear era and there is every reason against the idea of such a war ^[4] . According to Noam Chomsky, preventive warfare is a “super-crime” that was condemned in Nuremberg ^[5] .

Examples of Preventive Wars

In 1756, Frederick the Great began the Seven Years War as a preventive one, in view of the information he received about the formation of a large coalition. ^[6]

The Austrian empire waged such a warning war against Piedmont in 1859 in order to prevent the unification of Italy, and in 1914 against Serbia in order to overcome the power of the Great Serb movement that was corrupting Austria-Hungary . ^[6]

The version of the preemptiveness of the attack each time entered the official explanations of the Third Reich unleashing wars. In 1939-1940, Nazi propaganda claimed that the British provoked the Third Reich into the war with their "Environment Policy." Vinyl and F. Roosevelt for adhering to the ideology of the “crusade” against National Socialism. The German authorities also declared the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 a preventive measure, allegedly based on the concentration of Soviet troops on the border. During the Nuremberg trials, this version continued to be upheld, in particular by Ribbentrop . However, the truth of such statements was legally rejected by the international community as untenable already at the Nuremberg trials. ^[7]

In the early 1990s, the thesis of the preventive war of Germany against the USSR became widespread among a number of Russian historians and publicists. Moreover, according to the opinion of these authors, the war planned by Stalin against Hitler itself would also be preventive. This thesis is called into question or rejected by many historians.

Notes

↑ ¹ ² ³ ⁴ Flank, 2010 .
↑ (D. Bowett, J. Stone, M. MacDougal, X. Waldock, S. Schwebel, O. Shakhtar, R. Higgins, M. Shaw, B. Tuzmukhamedov, etc.)
↑ Utkin, 2005 .
↑ Dwight D. Eisenhower - Wikiquote
↑ Preventive War 'the Supreme Crime'
↑ ¹ ² Svechin, 1926 .
↑ Kumanyov G. A. The Soviet-German Nonaggression Pact and its consequences // Peace and Politics: Journal. - 2011. - No. 8 (59) .

Literature

Pashina A. D. New approaches in the use by states of the right to self-defense in the modern period // Scientific Tatarstan . - 2010. - No. 1 . - S. 157 . (inaccessible link)
Svechin A. A. 2. The political goal of the war // Strategy . - M.-L.: State Military Publishing House , 1926. - 400 p. - 5,000 copies.
Skotnikov L. A. The right to self-defense and new security imperatives] // International life . - 2004. - No. 9 . - S. 3-15 .
Tuzmukhamedov B. R. Preemptive force: "Carolina" and modernity // Russia in global politics . - 2006. - No. 2 (March - April) .
Chapter VII: Actions in relation to a threat to peace, violations of peace and acts of aggression (Articles 39-51) // UN Charter.
Utkin A.I. Bush Doctrine: the concept that divided America // Russia in global politics . - 2005. - No. 4 (July-August) .