OxBlog

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

# Posted 1:34 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

PRE-EMPTION VS. PREVENTION: Matt Yglesias explains why one is very different from the other and why the Democrats need to understand the difference.

Two small points: First, "pre-emption" has become a Democratic code word for everything that is wrong with Bush's foreign policy, so it may make sense for the Democrats to use it even if their definition is ahistorical.

Second, Matt describes World War I as the best-known example of a preventive war. I strongly disagree. Germany attacked Russia because the German leadership wanted to divert the working class' attention away from domestic politics. The prevention hypothesis was once quite popular but now has much less support.
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