Not that India and Pakistan have not previously taken ‘limited military action’ over Kashmire, er, Kashmir, of course.
Questions are: 1) is this an example of one of the things that that peace advocates were warning us about,
countries using the US-led invasion of Iraq as carte blanche to attack neighbors? 2) Is India justified in launching a pre-emptive strike against the percieved threat?
I’d guess that it’s only true if they can back it up. The US did, in that it followed up on its stated intention to have a pre-emptive action, and so far at least, seems to have been successful at it. India may make a whole lot of noises, but I’m pretty sure that’s about all it will be.
In this case at least IMO the peace activists were full of it, it’s not like this is a new concept. The USSR took plenty of pre-emptive action in Hungary, Checkoslovakia, and Afghanistan. China did the same in Tibet, North Korea against South Korea. It didn’t seem to set up any chain reactions around the world. France in the Congo(?), maybe Zaire. The Brits in the Suez Canal. And on, and on.
Yes it is exactly what the peace advocates were warning us about. What it is not is any change in Indian policy. India has already engaged in three preemptive wars against Pakistan due to threats it perceived Pakistan posed to it. The Indians now have additional political cover for actions it would or would not take anyway.
Countries have engaged in aggressive (IOW “preemptive”) wars since the dawn of time. Hell, aggressive wars were waging at the very moment the US purportedly created his wholly new precedent.
India is justified if any military action undertaken satisfies the criteria of the Just War Theory. Note that the Just War Theory does not prohibit preemptive action.
India and Pakistan have fought 3 wars (4 if you count the Kargil conflict a few years back). Out of these, the first was a war over Kashmir at the time of independence. It was by no means pre-emptive (or even “aggressive” as you term it though I don’t think “aggressive” captures what the principle of pre-emption implies). The second war broke out over skirmishes across the Rann of Kutch border . Pre-emptive? Not at all. The genesis of the third war was a momentous civil war within Pakistan with 10 million refugees crossing to India. India was also under air-attack in Kashmir. The most recent war was fought after there was an intrusion into the Indian border by armed men supported by Pakistan.
India has not waged three pre-emptive wars with Pakistan in the past though the current administration did come close to starting the first. It looks like they might try again.
One significant difference is the ability to minimize civilian casualties. I don’t think Bush would’ve gone into Iraq if we had to do it WWII style. What is the state of Indian “smart weapons”?
Remember when the phrase “ethnic cleansing” was first used? Pretty soon every country involved in a conflict was claiming ethnic cleansing by the other side. Since 9/11, everybody has been accusing the other side of terrorism. “Pre-emptive action” will now be added to the popular lexicon.
I predicted this consequence in a SDMB thread sometime in March. (However, I am too lazy to attempt to link you to the actual thread, so you will have to take my word for it.)
Well it’s not like cannibalism is a new concept either, but it would be new if it became the official policy of the US government, no?
What is entirely new about the Bush doctrine is its hardline assertion of the US’s determination to fight wars preventively. Since WWII the US government’s policy has been to adhere to an international law stance on war; hence the Brits were chastized by the US for what they did in the Suez. The USSR’s activities were also condemened by the US and other Western countries.
Gee, bayonet, do you not notice a bit of a shift when the US begins to openly avow a doctrine that aligns its foreign policy with the former USSR or with China?
Yeah theose peace activists are really full of it, alright. :rolleyes:
Here, for anyone with an open mind is a link to and some excerpts from an informative article on the subject:
"What is certain, and scary, is the new approach to the use of international force beneath the banner of counterterrorism and in the domestic climate of fervent nationalism that has existed since September 11. This new approach repudiates the core idea of the United Nations Charter (reinforced by decisions of the World Court in The Hague), which prohibits any use of international force that is not undertaken in self-defense after the occurrence of an armed attack across an international boundary or pursuant to a decision by the UN Security Council. When Iraq conquered and annexed Kuwait in 1990, Kuwait was legally entitled to act in self-defense to recover its territorial sovereignty even without any UN authorization. And the United States and others were able to join Kuwait in bolstering its prospects, thereby acting in what international lawyers call collective self-defense.
Back in 1956, when the American commitment to this Charter effort to limit the discretion of states to the extent possible was still strong, the US government surprised its allies and adversaries by opposing the Suez war of Britain, France and Israel because it was a nondefensive use of force against Egypt, despite the provocations associated at the time with Nasser’s anti-Israeli, anti-Western militancy. This legal commitment had evolved by stages in the period after World War I, and when the surviving leaders of Germany and Japan were prosecuted for war crimes, “crimes against the peace” were declared to be even worse than atrocities committed in the course of the war. The task of the Charter was to give this concept as clear limits as possible.
Pre-emption, in contrast, validates striking first–not in a crisis, as was done by Israel with plausible, if not entirely convincing, justification in the 1967 war, when enemy Arab troops were massing on its borders after dismissing the UN war-preventing presence, but on the basis of shadowy intentions, alleged potential links to terrorist groups, supposed plans and projects to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and anticipations of possible future dangers. It is a doctrine without limits, without accountability to the UN or international law, without any dependence on a collective judgment of responsible governments and, what is worse, without any convincing demonstration of practical necessity. "
I can’t wait for George W. Bush to say, with a straight face and not a hint of irony, that India has no right to pre-emptively attack Pakistan. :rolleyes:
I say India doesn’t have that right. Not now, and not like this. pakistan doesn’t represent a notable threat to India except as a nuclear power. And they know that they cannot win such a conflict. Actually starting a conflict would likely result in millions of casualties on both sides, and possibly the eliminination of either a functioning nation-state.
regardless of your personal vendetta against Pres. Bush, he made war upon Iraq because he believed that unchecked, it would cause imense suffering, eventually provide of source of WoMD to terrorists (Although its unlikely Hussein himself would do this, he won’t be around forever, and his children are less stable than he is. Plus, he might just lose some to terrorist incusion or theft someday.), create Nuclear weaponry, was breaking its UN-given rules not to have WoMD, and was a brutal tyrant dictator.
One or even two of thse might never have been enough, but the combination gave us an opportunity to do good for a lot of people and protect our long-term security.
India and Pakistan are both squabbling over olf insults and old aggression. I don’t even think its about the land anymore, but rather the deep desire to see the other guy hurt. The fact of the matter is that neither one of them hold any moral superiority, and if they did invade each other, the result would be a protracted, painful struggle. If Pakistan survived, Musharref would probabyl turn to radical Islam to stabilize (sort of) his military with light guerrilla forces. Plus, lots of people would get nuked.
In any event, I note the Iraq war was in fact approved by the UN.
I’d agree that this doesn’t really seem to be a shift in India’s policy stance, but rather a shift in rhetoric. Even if India did attack Pakistan though, I don’t see how it would be preventative, since the two countries exchange mortar fire almost daily. IMO, they have been involved in a “warm” war (that is, more than a US/USSR-style Cold War and less than a real war) for over 20 years now.
Yes, and we’ve been bombing Iraq for the last ten years without saying it was a war.
Your point?
For other examples of times when the US Administration’s need to not appear hypocritical on the world stage has resulted in less than desirable circumstances, I give you Chechnya. No, the US didn’t start that, I’m not claiming that, but the War on an Abstract Noun crippled the US government (and, by proxy, the governments of Eastern Europe who have a vested interest in not having a bloody war which nearly amounts to an ethnic cleansing campaign* fought nearby, including a number of the new EU members) to put any diplomatic pressure on Putin to act with any degree of restraint.
I’m not, and haven’t ever, claimed that problems like this were America’s fault, but the attempts to solve these problems aren’t being helped at all, and in some cases actively hindered, by the Great Big Clodhoppers of American Foreign Policy tramping all over everything. A little subtlety would be nice.
I presume you are talking to me. I do not in fact have a personal vendetta against Pres. Bush. I would prefer to see someone else in that office, but that’s not the same thing at all.
Anyway, I’ll agree with some of the respondents that India seems to have hijacked the terminology of the US pre-emptive policy as a fig leaf to cover a long-standing policy of limited military action over the Kashmir issue.
As an aside, I’ll just mention I was fascinated by this statement:
Well, firstly, that would seem to me to be a notable threat indeed, since both countries have been on the verge of war several times in the past few decades.
Secondly, I have yet to see a compelling argument that Iraq presented a ‘notable’ threat to the US, uh, except for those WMD that haven’t turned up yet. The ‘liberation of the Iraqi people’ argument is something else altogether, but is moot in this discussion because that was never the primary reason given by the administration for invading Iraq.
Finally, I find it sadly predictable that persons loudly in favor of a pre-emptive policy when it favors their interests will just as loudly object to such a policy when their own interests are not at stake.
You lost me there. What purpose does the nature or the result of pre-emptive action have on the principles of pre-emption? Pre-emptive action can be initiated only if the party initiating it is confident of minimal casualties and easy victory?
Interesting you brought that up because the fact of the matter is India can make MUCH stronger and verifiable claims that Pakistan has, and is, sponsoring terrorism in Kashmir with the aim to destabilize the region and India. US admin itself has frequently asked Pakistan to curb across-the-border infiltration by terrorists. So, if Bush in his heart and soul felt a war with Iraq was the right thing to do, Vajpayee sure can, and with greater conviction. The only problem as you brough up earlier is the scale of bloodiness of a potential conflict and the threat of it going nuclear, but I don’t see how that should taint the principles of pre-emption. Let us also note that Bush and admin believed Saddam’s regime possessed WoMD.
While you are partially right, also include the rise of Pak-sponsored terrorism in the past decade.
