Preventive use of force may be justifiable

Vladimir Dvorkin, RIA Novosti, Moscow

Despite the fact that world's leading powers constantly monitor proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems, hundreds of violations and suspected violations of the non-proliferation regime are registered every year around the world.

At present, more than 15 countries of the "third world" have at their disposal and develop ballistic missiles of various ranges. The number of such countries is constantly growing, and the most worrisome among them are those situated in unstable regions: North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya and Egypt.

For many of these countries, ballistic missiles are the instrument of waging wars, a solid addition to combat capabilities of conventional armed forces. Other countries consider ballistic missiles as a deterrent, as a status quo symbol or a means of blackmailing their neighbors.

The proliferation of long-range ballistic missiles, capable of delivering WMD to designated targets, leads to changes in the strategic situation in the Middle East and in Asia, and threatens a growing number of locations in these regions.

One of the most urgent threats is the close connection between missile-development programs and research in the sphere of WMD. All research work on the development of advanced ballistic missiles and the increase of their range conducted in "rogue" countries worries experts all around the world.

The danger lies not just in the threat of preventive nuclear strikes on the territory of a neighboring country. After all, any dictator clearly realizes that as a result of immediate retaliation he would lose everything once and for all.

In the mean time, for any dictator, possession of nuclear arsenal is the key factor ensuring the stability of his regime under external pressure. We should not exclude the possibility that the change of regime in Iraq through use of force might force similar regimes to expedite frantically their efforts to acquire WMD, primarily, nuclear weapons.

All these facts require the world community to provide an adequate response to the threats posed by totalitarian regimes that seek nuclear weapons. The world community is also aware of the three inter-related challenges to global security: Totalitarian regimes possessing or seeking WMD and their delivery systems, which provoke regional conflicts; a hardly contained proliferation of WMD and their delivery systems; and, finally, international terrorism.

All these threats are coming from totalitarian regimes. The danger is increased significantly when such weapons end up in the hands of transnational terrorist organizations that rely on support of these regimes.

Moreover, only the support of "rogue" regimes, where WMD labs, terrorist training camps, medical and rest and recreation centers are located, makes these organizations stable structures. At the same time, terrorist organizations seeking acquisition of WMD are not subjects of international policy and cannot be influenced by purely political or diplomatic means. In such circumstances, the only way of destroying such organizations could be preventive use of force.

The forms of such counteraction might vary and they should not be limited to full-scale military operations against "rogue" regimes. For example, in summer of 2002, before the beginning of the UN discussions on Iraqi issue, 30 influential independent U.S. analysts suggested an alternative way of destroying Iraqi WMD arsenal with the use of the so-called compulsory inspections.

The plan provided for inspections conducted with support of air-transported mobile groups from the international contingent, at any facility and at any time, for as long as necessary. It also allowed disassembling or destroying any WMD facilities discovered in the course of inspections.

Compulsory inspections also could have been conducted in other "rogue" countries in accordance with UN resolutions. They could have been supported by means of advanced instrumental reconnaissance and international forces deployed near the borders of totalitarian regimes.

Later, such suggestions were voiced in Russia, by Yavlinski in particular. If such an alternative way had been adopted, we would have had a chance to disarm Iraq without conducting a full-scale military operation. However, nobody in Russia or the United States, which had already decided to invade Iraq without the UN resolution by that time, paid any attention to these suggestions.

One of the preventive measures of G-8 countries and the UN Security Council could be the legitimization of compulsory UN inspections supported by international forces of varied strength and entrusted with monitoring the adherence to the non- proliferation regime. The procedures for such inspections might be extended to include terrorist training camps and centers of international terrorism.

It certainly seems to be the sound method of neutralizing possible violations of the international non-proliferation regime. Overall, it is impossible to stave off WMD threat coming from totalitarian regimes or international terrorism by purely defensive measures. Only preventive measures implying in certain cases the use of force can be effective. Instead of simply reacting on catastrophic outcome of terrorist actions, we need to develop a coordinated strategy aimed at compulsory disarmament, change of regimes, suppression of terrorist centers without violation of territorial integrity of countries that harbor them.

For Russia, which does not have any other alternative but to pursue military-political and economic integration with the West, it would have been beneficial, indeed, to become one of the leaders of preventive counteraction to totalitarian regimes, instead of positioning itself sometimes too close to dictators, following the principle "he is a scoundrel, but at least he is on our side."