Preventive action by military means: A contested approach.

Conflict prevention has become a fashionable term again but with varied and confusing meanings for academics and the policy community. It raises the issue of the use and justification of coercive power including military intervention. The United States has embraced the notion of preventive action as an entry point for military pre-emption. This is formulated in the National Security Strategy of 2002 in which the move is from deterrence to protection. The EU (and Russia), while hesitant in embracing it, does not reject prevention, military pre-emption and the move to protection outright in the Solana doctrine. This is leading to differences between the more interventionaist Powers in the EU (e.g. Britain and France) and those with a more pacifist neutral tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]