Regarding the Bush Administration’s National Security Strategy, published on September 17, 2002: “To the strategies of containment and deterrence the administration added preemption. It announced: ‘Traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents; whose so-called soldiers seek martyrdom in death and whose most potent protection is statelessness. …The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive action to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction–and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.’ ”
– Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone, Page 143