The untold story of a plan that would have prevented Pearl Harbor--and perhaps World War II

Preemptive warfare is the practice of attempting to avoid an enemy’s seemingly imminent attack by taking military action against them first. It is undertaken in self-defense. Preemptive war is often confused with preventive war, which is an attack launched to defeat a potential opponent and is an act of aggression. Preemptive war is thought to be justified and honorable, while preventive war violates international law. In the real world, the distinction between the two is highly contested. In First Strike, Matthew J. Flynn examines case studies of preemptive war throughout history, from Napoleonic France to the American Civil War, and from Hitler’s Germany to the recent U.S. invasion of Iraq. Flynn takes an analytical look at the international use of military and political preemption throughout the last two hundred years of western history, to show how George W. Bush’s recent use of this dubiously "honorable" way of making war is really just the latest of a long line of previously failed attempts. Balanced and historically grounded, First Strike provides a comprehensive history of one of the most controversial military strategies in the history of international foreign policy.

In the turbulent 1990s in Russia, eighteen-year-old Svetlana is about to graduate from high school. She dreams of traveling and of becoming a Russian ambassador to the United States or England. But when she meets Yuri, a young ruffian working for the Russian Mafia, her life takes a drastic turn. Yuri wants to date Svetlana, but she rejects him, and Yuri swears vengeance. When Svetlana is offered the chance to be a nanny to a loving English family in London, she boards the plane without a second thought. Only too late does she discover that Yuri has carried out a vicious plot against her. Heathcliff, an imposing Englishman, certainly doesn't need a nanny-but he does need more girls for his prostitution ring, and beautiful, exotic Svetlana will make the perfect addition. Held hostage and forced to become a prostitute, Svetlana becomes all too familiar with the seedy London underworld. But Yuri didn't bargain on Svetlana's courageous inner spirit, and she'll do whatever it takes to escape-and seek her own revenge.

The book examines the complex and contested moral and legal issues of preventive warfare.

The year is 1953. The Cold War is frigid and the Soviets are winning. Their intercontinental nuclear missile program is five years ahead of America "s but lacks a single critical technology: the material to protect the missile nosecones on reentry. The Kremlin knows the Americans possess this technology and activates its gorgeous and ruthless American-embedded spy, Agent Sonya, to obtain the carefully guarded secret with full authority to use extreme measures. Only Dominic Benvenuto, a young FBI phenom, stands between Sonya and total nuclear destruction of the United States.Meticulously researched and thrillingly told, "Preemptive Strike" relates a precarious moment in history when the fate of the world lay in the hands of a very select few."A well researched, tense tale of cold war espionage, as two superpowers vied for nuclear supremacy. The author's care for history and suspenseful conclusion make this bit of fiction a great read--a terrific first effort." George J. Tenet Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency

Does the United States have the right to defend itself by striking first, or must it wait until an attack is in progress? Is the Bush Doctrine of aggressive preventive action a justified and legal recourse against threats posed by terrorists and rogue states? Tackling one of the most controversial policy issues of the post-September 11 world, Michael Doyle argues that neither the Bush Doctrine nor customary international law is capable of adequately responding to the pressing security threats of our times. In Striking First, Doyle shows how the Bush Doctrine has consistently disregarded a vital distinction in international law between acts of preemption in the face of imminent threats and those of prevention in the face of the growing offensive capability of an enemy. Taking a close look at the Iraq war, the 1998 attack against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, among other conflicts, he contends that international law must rely more completely on United Nations Charter procedures and develop clearer standards for dealing with lethal but not immediate threats. After explaining how the UN can again play an important role in enforcing international law and strengthening international guidelines for responding to threats, he describes the rare circumstances when unilateral action is indeed necessary. Based on the 2006 Tanner Lectures at Princeton University, Striking First includes responses by distinguished political theorists Richard Tuck and Jeffrey McMahan and international law scholar Harold Koh, yielding a lively debate that will redefine how--and for what reasons--tomorrow's wars are fought.

RAND Project AIR FORCE studied the post-9/11 shift in U.S. defense policy emphasis toward preemptive and preventive attack, asking under what conditions preemptive or preventive attack is worth considering as a response to perceived threats. It considered the role such first-strike strategies are likely to play in future U.S. national security policy. Finally, it identified implications these conclusions have for military planners and policymakers as they prepare to deal with national security threats in the next decade.