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Just to establish my POV on this current war: we didn't have faulty intelligence, we had faulty leadership who fabricated faith-based intelligence. This is no different than cops planting evidence and then arresting someone. We've all seen movies like Dirty Harry where we the audience are gifted with the knowledge that someone is evil and deserving of bloody vengence even if there isn't enough evidence to prove it in court. In such cases, we feel the Dirty Harry cop is just in planting the evidence to bring him down or simply engaging in an extrajudicial killing. But while that makes for an entertaining movie, it's not exactly the sort of justice system I'd want to live under. After all, there's no real legal difference between Dirty Harry knowing someone is guilty and a racist cop deciding someone is black enough to have done the crime; it's just personal opinion.
The problem with nations is that we don't really have a world cop to resort to when other nations are getting out of hand. We lack an impartial third party to turn to for a review of the complaints and a passing of judgment. By the time there is enough evidence in the open so that it's plain to all to see that force must be used to settle a problem, often times the matter is forced by a declaration of war from the other party. The classic examples used in favor of a preemptive war would be WWII. It is argued that if the Allies from the first world war had shown some spine in face of Hitler's expansionist policies, he would have had to content himself with holding Germany. As has been revealed after the war, Hitler was bluffing and lacked the strength to back his claims. By the time he attacked Poland, his war machine was stronger than ever. With regards to Japan, I'm not sure much could have been done to avert that war. The entire Japanese nation was hellbent on imperialistic expansion, having learned such arts lovingly at the knee of Europe. Their concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Propserity Sphere was just an update of our own Monroe Doctrine. While military academics saw a war with Japan as likely for a decade or more before Pearl Harbor, nobody could be stirred to do much about it. To be fair, America's isolationist stance was greatly bolstered by the utter stupidity of the first world war. It was, to misquote Seinfeld, "a war about nothing." It was as if a gentlemanly bout of fisticuffs over some trivial matter of honor was fought with chainsaws and hand grenades.
So, there are historically bad examples for preemptive war like Iraq. There are historically valid examples in support of preemptive war such as WWII. Nobody can argue against fighting back when attacked but when could you justify hitting first? How do you tell the difference between defensively throwing the first punch and being the bully in the first place?
Here are two scenarios to chew over based on our Cold War enemy, the USSR.
Scenario 1: At the end of WWII, Gen. Patton argued that we should continue the war, switching enemies and attacking the Soviets directly. Many people saw that the USSR came out of the war strengthened despite the setbacks. They had over 400 divisions under arms and the past twenty years of Communist propaganda made it clear that they were quite evangelical about their views. Patton argued that a war with them would be inevitable and we may as well fight it with our war machine running at full steam than repeat the folly of WWII, going into a world war with a peacetime army. His fear was proven correct with how flatfooted were were caught when the Korean War broke out.
The arguments against his position were that the US was war-weary and the nation would not take kindly to starting a war that could prove bigger than the one against Germany. There was no way to tell for certain that Russia would turn out to be an enemy. It would also be a hard sell since we spent all this time building up Uncle Joe as an ally. There was also not much of an appreciation for just how deadly the nuclear bomb would prove to be. Nobody at the time thought that avoiding war with the USSR then meant that a future war would be final.
We know from history that World War III never happened. What we don't know for certainty is why it didn't. There were certainly enough close-calls through the years just from faulty instrumentation, let alone any actual intentions for making the first strike. We know from history that brinksmanship on the part of simpletons such as Reagan brought us inches from war. (Look up Able Archer. The Soviets were absolutely convinced that Reagan's war games were a prelude to a nuclear first strike and were ready to counter-attack at a moment's notice. When Reagan found out about this later, he could not understand how Russia could mistake us for "bad guys." He didn't just use good and evil for propaganda purposes, he actually saw the world in black and white.)
So, would a war against the USSR have been justifiable, given the risks?
Scenario 2: I haven't found backing info for this so it might be just a tad bit hypothetical. It is historical fact that Air Force general and certifiable madman Curtis LeMay wanted to launch a first strike during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was the mastermind of the air war against Japan. His conventional firebombing raid against Tokyo killed more people than either of the atomic bombings. He was an inventive and efficient killer and brought about megadeath bodycounts before such a term had even been coined.
The facts I haven't been able to cooborate were a listings of the nuclear orders of battle for the US and USSR at the time. The point brought forward there was that the US had large numbers of intercontinental, intermediate-range, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as well as long-range bombers. The Soviets at the time had 100 liquid-fueled ICBM's that had an astonishing 48 hour prep time. Their bomber force was not in the best of shape either. LeMay felt that we could win against those numbers. Just like the general in Strangelove, he felt we might take a few on the chin but Russia would be KO'd. He even ordered a test launch of a ballistic missile from Cape Canaveral in the hopes of making the Bear jump, getting the OK from Kennedy to go to war. Of course, we know that didn't happen. But in the intervening time the Soviets built up a larger launch capability, thus ensuring that global nuclear war would be even less winnable than before.
With such a scenario, would you pull the trigger?
I think both of these are tough questions. I would say historically, we were very lucky and without much tribute to our own wisdom. I find it incredible that we didn't see loss of nuclear control with the fall of the USSR. Humanity was luckier than we had any right to be. But if I had to choose, I could see the argument for going to war in Scenario 1. For Scenario 2, I think the risks are simply too great. But could you imagine what a protracted post-WWII war with Russia would have been like? They would have developed the bomb sooner or later, with or without help from American traitors. Intercontinental bombers were already on the drawing boards. The lack of large nuclear stockpiles would mean that we'd be facing the threat of periodic air raids but with the threat that even one bomber making it through would mean the loss of an entire city. This would not be the 80's nightmare scenario of a 20 minute war but a slow whittling away of the nation, one irradiated city at a time.
It's humbling to think of just how dangerous a game international diplomacy is. It's frightening to consider the idiots playing for our side.
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