Preemptive War Helps Keep the Peace—Preventive War Needlessly Destroys It

In the wake of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign, the Pentagon drew up plans to send 120,000 U.S. soldiers to the Middle East should Iran lash out in any way, potentially including restarting their nuclear program. Some claim restarting this program and working toward this weapons capability would merit a military strike, the president's top national security advisor among them. This is "preventive" war, it's the same foolish thinking that was used to justify the Iraq war, and it's terrible for America and our friends and allies in the region.

Following North Korean missile tests in 2017, then-National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said the United States could not coexist with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang and that as a result, “there is a military option.” John Bolton argued for bombing Iran. The blatant, painfully obvious reality, however, is that the only thing preventive war accomplishes is to destroy peace and the possibility of finding diplomatic resolutions.

There are many problems with this logic, but perhaps one of the most glaring is that such thinking doesn’t bother to argue the merits of whether a given unfriendly regime might one day attack us; they posit it doesn’t matter whether the regime demonstrates ill-intent or not.  They should be compelled either to unconditionally surrender or be destroyed. There is no evidence to suggest such a practice will keep Americans safe. We do, however, have compelling evidence that deterrence can forestall any attack from ever occurring.

History suggests that even the most brutal, murderous, immoral leaders can be deterred from using nuclear weapons, without choosing to launch a war against them. China’s Mao Tse-Tung is reported to have killed 45 million of his own people during his reign. He hated the United States and dispatched more than 300,000 of his soldiers to attack U.S. troops during the Korean War.

He had nuclear weapons, yet never used them against us because we successfully deterred him. As evil as he was, he wanted to retain power and knew that if he used nuclear weapons, he would have been destroyed immediately. The USSR’s Joseph Stalin was just as murderous and was likewise deterred.

The real problem in the current environment is that some pundits believe they don't even need evidence Iran intends to attack the U.S. or our allies, they simply believe we should destroy them. That view is both illogical and irrational. Consider the following.

First, even the theoretical risk to U.S. national security by Iran is low. At most they could inflict some damage to a few of our naval assets and could probably disrupt the flow of oil in the straits. Second, if they attempted either, the effects would be minimal and short-lived – yet would result in massive and destructive counterstrike that would devastate Iran’s defenses. Teheran knows this, and thus, are very unlikely to take any direct action against the United States.

That decreases the chances of miscalculation and has a destabilizing effect. Launching wars of choice with the stated aim of preventing a country from possessing some military capacity is destabilizing and encourages states to proliferate—regime change campaigns provide an incentive for unsavory governments and dictators to acquire weapons to deter U.S.-led military interventions.

When the U.S. has credible, compelling, and clear evidence that an adversary is about to launch an unprovoked attack against, we would never stand passively by and wait for the blows to start falling before engaging the enemy. Presently, however, there is no evidence that an attack by Iran is imminent. Launching a war of choice absent a threat—which requires both capability and intent—would be even more disastrous and costly than the Iraq war.

Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments.