Preemptive Strikes

Once you accept the morality of a preemptive strike, you accept the fact that the concept is now moral for every person on the planet. Under this rule, if anyone believes that their circumstance is threatened by anyone else, they have the moral right to execute a first strike against that other party. This concept, if implemented fully, would make it difficult to run a gradeschool, let alone international relations. Suppose a college kid in Africa invents a new deadly virus. If his favorite news organization says America has caused his nations problems, does that make it morally acceptable for him to use that virus against America? We believe in the freedom of the press, and that is good. But freedom of the press is different from freedom to kill others. The truth is that the policy of preemptive strikes was instituted by people who believed they had the full backing of an unchallengeable military power. Anyone else on the planet would not support such a policy.

I fear military power because I believe that some individual like Hitler or Alexander the Great will gain control and run the whole thing to ruin. The common man during either of those regimes did not benefit from the acts of conquest. Only the arms manufacturers and the ethnic special interest groups with influence did well. Everyone else suffered.