I’m reading an article about Howard Dean in Time Magazine, and I came across a part where Dean says that he supported the interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo. He also says, " I believe there are times when pre-emptive force is justified, but there has to be an immediate threat." He says that to explain why he is against the conflict in Iraq.
Why exactly were the interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo immediate threats? I’m assuming he means an immediate threat to the United States, is this a correct assumption?
Countries have long gone to war to promote foreign policy interests, not just to secure themselves from a threat. Recall the Monroe Doctrine, for example - the US was very willing for more than one and a half centuries to use force to prevent European influence in the Western hemisphere, whether or not that influence posed a threat to the United States.
Although I don’t know his views on the subject, Dean might respond by saying that stopping those wars was in the foreign policy interest of the United States, which is more or less what Clinton argued.