The 25-day war claimed fewer American lives than victims of murder in Louisiana in a similar period. In monetary terms the war cost a tiny sum in a $10 trillion economy.

The business of war has regained part of the popularity it had lost over decades. Both British and US defense ministries report sharp increases in the number of young men and women seeking to join the forces. Throughout the democratic world the idea of spending more on military matters is becoming acceptable once again.

The worldwide demonstrations organized to protest the war in Iraq were mostly aimed against the US, not the concept of war as such.

Pre-emptive war is an old idea returning with fresh rigor.

After World War I the Western democracies built their defense doctrine around the idea of self-defense. They reduced military expenditure, diverted resources to developing defensive weapons, and tried to depend on diplomacy as an alternative to war.

The doctrine worked for as long as all the powers capable of waging war respected it. It was first tested when Italy invaded Ethiopia. Next came the Spanish civil war in which fascist Italy and Nazi Germany helped the Falangists overthrow a left-wing republic. Then came Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia. It was not until the Nazis had invaded Poland that the self-defense principle was unleashed.

Advocates of the “pre-emptive” doctrine say that an early attack against Nazi Germany, say in 1936, before Hitler had had time to build his war machine might have prevented World War II. Fascist Italy and militarist Japan, too, could have been taken on before they became strong enough to invade other nations.

With the end of World War II the new doctrine of self-defense replaced the “containment” doctrine.

The new doctrine was aimed at preventing real or perceived adversaries from expanding their territory and winning the arms race against the democratic nations. John Foster Dulles described it as “quarantine for the aggressor.”

The “containment” doctrine worked better than the “self-defense” one if only because the Soviet Union, perceived as the No. 1 threat to the “Free World”, understood the reality of power and refrained from direct attacks on the Western nations.

By the start of the 1990s and the disappearance of the Soviet threat, the “containment” doctrine had lost its relevance. It was occasionally used to justify inaction or patience with regard to small regional enemies of the West such as Libya, Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Supporters of “containment” insist that it has worked well. None of the regimes mentioned has been able to expand its territory or seriously threaten the democratic states.

What is forgotten, however, is that in the case of all the four countries mentioned, “containment” has been accompanied by military action of varying scope and intensity. Libya was contained after it was attacked in 1986. The containment of Iraq under Saddam Hussein started in 1991 after he was forcibly thrown out of Kuwait. The mullas of Iran were contained after the US Navy sunk half of the Iranian Navy in the Gulf in 1987. The containment of North Korea was achieved through a continued and massive show of American military power and the build-up of South Korea’s war machine.

Opponents of “containment” argue that all the contained states remain potential sources of threat to the “democratic world” and thus acting as factors of instability in their respective regions. In some cases, as was with the latest war in Iraq, the ultimate choice remains the use of force.

The doctrine of pre-emptive war is attractive. Why not remove cancerous cells with timely surgery before they spread further? Nevertheless, it should be regarded as dangerous for a number of reasons.

To begin with, it bases the decision to make war on a real or imagined adversary’s intentions, not its behavior. One could call this the Walter Mitty test, after the hero of a Hollywood comedy who spent his life daydreaming about himself in a variety of heroic roles.

For example, there is no doubt that some Iranian mullas would love to export their revolution, create a Khomeinist empire, and enter history as great conquerors. But the real question is whether they have the means of pursuing such dreams in practice? To attack them under the Walter Mitty test would be bad politics, to say the least. A more efficient policy may well be to help them to slowly work their way out of their madness and back into sanity.

Another problem with the “pre-emptive” concept is that it enables the stronger power in any contest to act as judge, jury and executioner at the same time. At present we have 66 more or less active conflicts in various parts of the world. In each of them the stronger party could invade the weaker one in the name of “pre-emption.”

Also, the “pre-emptive” doctrine turns the use of force, that must remain the last resort in international relations, a routine tool of policy, at least for nations that have the military power required.

Because one is always weaker than some and stronger than others, all nations could be exposed to the threat of “pre-emptive” attacks at different times. The Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor in 1941 was, in fact, an exercise in pre-emption because it was designed to prevent the US from entering the war against the Axis powers. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980 was designed to pre-empt the mullas who made no secret of their desire to destroy his regime.

Today even the US would not be immune against “pre-emptive” attacks by enemies that might impute to it all manner of sinister intentions.

In the past decade or so the world has witnessed more than two dozen wars. The United States and Britain have taken part in half of those in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. None of those wars could be regarded as “pre-emptive”. Some, like the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo came in response to atrocities that had not been pre-empted.

Even the liberation of Iraq cannot be regarded as strictly “pre-emptive”.

There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was in any position to expand his territory or seriously threaten the democratic states. The fact that toppling Saddam was a noble cause that this writer strongly supported does not change the fact that this was not a case of pre-emption but of regime change.

This new doctrine, changing regimes that the stronger powers don’t like for whatever reason, is even more controversial than the doctrine of pre-emption.