In a leaked set of internal Pentagon military guidelines, Paul Wolfowitz argued that
America’s “right” to pursue preventive wars arose, not out of an imperialist quest for power, but rather out of an
“exceptional” American responsibility to promote democracy and open markets worldwide. The first venue in which these hawks argued for such a preventive war was Iraq.
The conservative historian, Paul Schroeder, warned in 2002 that one of the logical outcomes of America’s announcement of a preventive intervention policy would be that other countries would emulate it.
Indeed, Schroeder’s prediction has proven to be entirely justified. After the Bush administration started advocating for a preventive war in Iraq, other countries quickly joined the debate, announcing (or threatening to announce) their own policies of preventive intervention regarding their particular national security threats.
Thus, on 1 December 2002, Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced Australia’s "right" to preventive action in South East Asia to counter terrorist threats, much to the dismay of neighbouring countries there. He was joined on 9 April 2003 by Yashwant Sinha, Indian External Affairs Minister, who sparked howls of protest from neighbouring Pakistan when he argued that India’s case for preventive war against Pakistan was much better than America’s case against Iraq. One month later, Japanese Minister Junichiro Koizumi, announced his country’s right to the pre-emptive option, in a statement directed largely towards the North Koreans. In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced his country’s right to pre-emptive strikes, citing specifically the North Korean crisis as well as the precedent for such a policy set by the United States. After the terrorist attacks in Beslan, he also declared that Russia has the right to strike against terrorism “anywhere in the world”. At that time, the French were also considering a shift in their nuclear policy, and Jacques Chirac announced the possibility of using pre-emptive strikes against “rogue states”. And – to close off the year – Israeli Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz, in December threatened Iranians with a preventive strike along the lines of their 1981 action against Iraq’s Osirak reactor if Iran continued to develop its nuclear weapons programme.
Clearly, other countries do not share the view of some American commentators that America is so exceptional that
only it can engage in a policy of preventive intervention.