| And of course, this has been the issue since the beginning of the war, with that first so-called preemptive decapitation strike two days before the ground war started. |
| His mortal fear of Jesse James led him to kill the famous outlaw, not just for the reward money, but as a preemptive strike to save his own life. |
| The doctrine invites abuse because it offers no criteria by which to judge a threat justifying a preemptive strike. |
| However, none of the above is sufficient justification for a preemptive military strike. |
| The reader is led to believe that Stalin oriented his military commanders toward a preemptive strike by the Red Army. |
| Third, he relied on spotty intelligence and the threat of chemical weapons to justify a preemptive strike. |
