SINGAPORE: It sounds like an arcane debate among wordsmiths. But the distinction between pre-emptive and preventive war, drawn by US President George W. Bush in ordering the US invasion of Iraq, could change the face of war.

Galvanized since the September 11 attacks by a need to protect the homeland, Bush has tossed aside, if not quite torn up, the United Nations Charter on war.

Strict conditions exist to undertake pre-emptive war and Bush has bypassed those to launch a preventive war, analysts say.

Bush’s preventive action is an innovation in contemporary history and opens the way for others to follow suit.

“While it is not true that the US has been able to establish a new norm of prevention, other expedient states may use the US action as justification, even though they are likely to be roundly condemned,” said Chris Reus-Smidt of the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Thus the ramifications are far-reaching, not just for countries with perceived enemies on their borders such as India and Pakistan, but also for Iran and North Korea.

“This is tectonic,” said Uday Bhaskar of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi.

“Before March 20 there had been a sense since the end of World War Two to the end of the Cold War that a certain consensus existed about the use of force and how that should be regulated.

“It sets a precedent,” he said. “This is a threat to stability, an action that induces anxiety. The question is why can’t it be a France next time, or an India?”

Analysts fear that the period of relative peace since the birth of the United Nations after World War Two, with its strict charter injunction against the use of force, could now be in serious jeopardy.

Few nations have flouted the UN charter that lays out specific conditions for the use of pre-emptive force. Two extraordinary exceptions are Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s OsIrak nuclear plant and the 1967 Six Day War, said Reus-Smidt.—Reuters