Matthew Banks (PhD Candidate)

Email
jmbanks@postoffice.utas.edu.au

Thesis Title
Strategic pre-emption post-9/11

Abstract
A year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks upon Washington and New York, the Bush administration released its National Security Strategy 2002. The NSS sought to articulate a new and comprehensive strategy to tackle the threat of international terrorism while maintaining US primacy in the post-Cold War order. It argued that ‘new deadly challenges have emerged from rogue states and terrorists’ making ‘today’s security environment more complex and dangerous’. In countering this threat, the NSS was explicit in reserving the option of pre-emptive actions to prevent any hostile act by America’s adversaries.

The US has used its strategy of pre-emption in Afghanistan and Iraq, and recently reaffirmed it in the March 2006 NSS as a key strategic doctrine (along with deterrence) in thwarting the proliferation of WMDs and maintaining global order.

This thesis considers the strategic usefulness of a pre-emptive strike doctrine. Is it now entrenched as US foreign policy following NSS 2006? How does the US doctrine of pre-emption affect international security? Does it make for a more stable international environment, or offer a ‘dangerous precedent’ for other states to emulate? Is this strategy a luxury of hyperpolarity? Or will future systemic changes in the distribution of power consign this policy to the scrap heap? And, most importantly, what are the strategic implications for Australia, and how will it balance escalating regional strategic competition whilst accommodating divergent economic and security interests?

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