Why Preemption Matters

The discovery of
North Korea’s secret nuclear program and the specter of a nuclear-armed Pyongyang has sent shockwaves across the world. A member of the "axis of evil" quite possibly has a nuclear weapon, and will soon have the Taepd Dong II missiles required to lob such a weapon across the Pacific to Los Angeles or Seattle.

This incident clearly shows that the efforts at non-proliferation have been an unqualified failure. The nuclear genie, once in the hands of Kim Jung Il, will likely be shared with other nations such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, or who knows where else. The balance of power has been irrecoverably changed in the North Pacific, and our allies in the region are at risk as never before.

We cannot allow this to happen with Iraq. One dictatorship with nuclear weapons is enough. Once a regime like this has such weapons it makes confrontation or diplomacy impossible. Nuclear weapons are the one way in which totalitarian regimes can guarantee their staying power no matter what they do to their own people or their neighbors.

The doctrine of preemption is a dangerous one, but it is a doctrine that is rooting in the realization that the world situation itself is dangerous. The Clinton Administration fiddled while the world burned from Afghanistan to North Korea, and we now face the consequences of that inaction in our daily lives. We cannot and must not allow other nations to also develop nuclear weapons and spark a new and more dangerous arms race. The only way to prevent this is to directly prevent the flow of arms and arms technologies, and ensure that any regime that is found to be developing such weapons is removed before it can do so.

The world has become drastically more dangerous in the past few days now that North Korea has the ability to kill millions in one shot. It’s bad enough that Pyongyang has a nuclear weapon – for Baghdad to have one would make the situation even more dangerous.