Prevent (pronounced pri-vent)
(1) To
keep from occurring; avert; hinder, especially by the taking of some
precautionary action.
(2) To hinder
or stop from doing something.
(3) To
act ahead of; to forestall (archaic).
(4) To precede
or anticipate (archaic).
(5) To
interpose a hindrance.
(6) To
outdo or surpass (obsolete).
1375–1425:
From the late Middle English preventen
(anticipate), from the Latin praeventus,
past participle of (1) praevenīre (to
anticipate; come or go before, anticipate), the construct being prae- (pre; before) + ven- (stem of venīre (come)) + -tus (the
past participle suffix) and (2) praeveniō
(I anticipate), the construct being prae-
(pre; before) + veniō (I come). In Classical Latin the meaning was literal
but in Late Latin, by the 1540s the sense of “to prevent” had emerged, the
evolution explained by the idea of “anticipate to hinder; hinder from action by
opposition of obstacles”. That meaning
seems not to have entered English until the 1630s and the spelling prævent is archaic. Prevent, prevented & preventing are verbs, prevention, reventability (preventibility the alternative spelling), prevention, preventive (preventative the alternative spelling) & preventable (preventible the alternative spelling), preventor (preventer the alternative spelling) are nouns, preventable (or preventible), preventive & preventative are adjectives and preventably (preventibly the alternative spelling) is an adverb; the noun plural is preventatives is in more common use than preventives.
The
adjective preventable (that can be prevented or hindered) dates from the 1630s,
the related preventability a decade-odd later.
The adjective preventative (serving to prevent or hinder) is noted from
the 1650s and for centuries, dictionaries have listed it as an irregular formation
though use seems still prevalent; preventive is better credentialed but now
appears relegated to be merely an alternative form. The adjective preventive (serving to prevent
or hinder; guarding against or warding off) has the longer pedigree (used since
the 1630s) and was from the Latin praevent-,
past-participle stem of praevenīre (to
anticipate; come or go before, anticipate).
It was used as a noun in the sense of "something taken or done
beforehand” since the 1630s and had entered the jargon of medicine by the 1670s,
and under the influence of the physicians came the noun preventiveness (the
quality of being preventive). The noun prevention
came from the mid-fifteenth century prevencioun
(action of stopping an event or practice), from the Medieval Latin preventionem (nominative preventio) (action of anticipating; a
going before), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of the
Classical Latin praevenīre. The original sense in English has been
obsolete since at least the late seventeenth century although it was used in a
poetically thus well into the 1700s.
Many
words are associated with prevent including obstruct, obviate, prohibit, rule
out, thwart, forbid, restrict, hamper, halt, forestall, avoid, restrain,
hinder, avert, stop, impede, inhibit, bar, preclude, counter, limit & block. Prevent, hamper, hinder & impede refer to
so degree of stoppage of action or progress. “To prevent” is to stop something by
forestalling action and rendering it impossible. “To hamper” or “to hinder” is to clog or
entangle or put an embarrassing restraint upon; not necessarily preventing but
certainly making more difficult and both refer to a process or act intended to
prevent as opposed to the prevention. “To
impede” is to make difficult the movement or progress of anything by interfering
with its proper functioning; it implies some physical or figurative impediment
designed to prevent something.
Pre-empt or preempt
(pronounced pree-empt)
(1) To
occupy (usually public) land in order to establish a prior right to buy.
(2) To
acquire or appropriate before someone else; take for oneself; arrogate.
(3) To
take the place of because of priorities, reconsideration, rescheduling, etc;
supplant.
(4) In
bridge, to make a pre-emptive bid (a high opening bid, made often a bluff by a
player holding a weak hand, in an attempt to shut out opposition bidding).
(5) To
forestall or prevent (something anticipated) by acting first; preclude; head
off.
(6) In
computer operating systems, the class of actions used by the OS to determine
how long a task should be executed before allowing another task to interact
with OS services (as opposed to cooperative multitasking where the OS never
initiates a context switch one running process to another.
(7) In
the jargon of broadcasting, a euphemism for "cancel” (technical use only).
1830:
An invention of US English, a back formation from preemption which was from the
Medieval Latin praeēmptiō (previous
purchase), from praeemō (buy before),
the construct being prae- (pre;
before) + emō (buy). The creation related to the law or real
property (land law), to pre-empt being “to occupy public land so
as to establish a pre-emptive title to it". In broadcasting, by 1965 it gained the
technical meaning of "set aside a programme and replace it with
another" which was actually a euphemism for "cancel”. The use of pre-empt as a noun happens in bridge, broadcasting and the design of computer operating systems (mostly in the context of multi-tasking). Pre-empt is a noun & verb, pre-empted & pre-empting are verbs, pre-emptor, pre-empted,
pre-emptory, pre-emptive & pre-emptible are adjectives; the noun plural is pre-empts.
In law,
broadcasting and computer operating system architecture, pre-empt has precise
technical meanings but when used casually, it can either overlap or be
synonymous with words like claim, usurp, confiscate, acquire, expropriate,
seize, assume, arrogate, anticipate, commandeer, appropriate, obtain, bump,
sequester, take, usurp, annex & accroach.
The spelling in the forms præemption, præ-emption etc is archaic). The hyphenated form (pre-empt) was historically the standard form except in the US English where all style guides recommend "preempt". Usually, simplified US spelling improves things (despite what the pedants claim) but pre-empt really is preferable because the double "e" makes the word less legible (it looks like a spelling mistake) and for those for whom English is not a first language, on first acquaintance, pronunciation must be baffling. Given all that, pre-empt is recommended.
Pre-emptive and preventive wars
A
pre-emptive war is a military action by one state against another, begun
with the intent of defeating what is perceived to be an imminent attack or at
least gaining a strategic advantage in the impending (and allegedly
unavoidable) war before that attack begins. The “pre-emptive war” is sometimes
confused with the “preventive war”, the difference being that the latter is intended
to destroy a potential rather than imminent threat; a preventative war may be
staged in the absence of enemy aggression or even the suspicion of military
planning. In international law, preventive
wars are now generally regarded as aggressive and therefore unlawful whereas a pre-emptive
war can be lawful if authorized by the UN Security Council as an enforcement
action. Such authorizations are not
easily gained because the initiation of armed conflict except in self-defense
against “armed attack” is not permitted by the United Nations (UN) Charter and only
the Security Council can endorse an action as a lawful “action of enforcement”. Legal theorists suggest if
it can be confirmed preparations for a future attack have been
confirmed, even if the attack has not be commenced, under international law the
attack (as a legal construct) can be said to have “begun” but the UN has never upheld this opinion. Militarily, the position does make sense,
especially if the first two indictments of the International Military Tribunal
(IMT) assembled at Nuremberg (1945-1946) to try the surviving Nazi leadership
((1) planning aggressive war & (2) waging aggressive war) are considered as reality rather than in the abstract.
Legal
(as opposed to moral or ethical) objections to pre-emptive or preventive wars were
not unknown but until the nineteenth century, lawyers and statesmen gave wide
latitude to the “right of self-defense” which really was a notion from natural
law writ large and a matter determined ultimately on the battlefield, victory
proof of the ends justifying the means. Certainly,
there was a general recognition of the right forcibly to forestall an attack and
the first legal precedent of note wasn’t codified until 1842 in the matter of the Caroline
affair (1837). Then, some Canadian citizens
sailed from Canada to the US in the Caroline
as part of a planned offensive against the British in Canada. The British crossed the border and attached,
killing both Canadians and a US citizen which led to a diplomatic crisis and
several years of low-level clashes. Ultimately
however, the incident led to the formulation of the legal principle of the
"Caroline test" which demands that for self-defense to be invoked, an
incident must be "…instant,
overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation". Really, that’s an expression little different
in meaning to the criteria used in many jurisdictions which must exist for the claim
of defense to succeed in criminal assault cases (including murder). The "Caroline test" remains an
accepted part of international law today, although obviously one which must be
read in conjunction with an understanding of what's changed over the last 200-odd
years.
The "Caroline test" was however a legal principle and such things need to be enforced
and that requires both political will and a military mechanism. In the aftermath of the Great War (1914-1918),
that was the primary purpose of the League of Nations (LoN, 1920-1946), an international
organization (the predecessor of the UN) of states, all of which agreed to
desist from the initiation of all wars, (pre-emptive or otherwise). Despite the modern perception of the LoN as an ineffectual talking-shop, in the 1920s it did enjoy some success in settling
international disputes and was seen as as effective. It was an optimistic age, the Locarno
Treaties (1925) and the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) appeared to outlaw war but
the LoN (or more correctly its member states) proved incapable of halting the aggression
in Europe, Asia and Africa which so marked the 1930s. Japan and Italy had been little punished for
their invasions and Nazi Germany, noting Japan’s construction of China as a “technical
aggressor” claimed its 1939 invasion of Poland was a “defensive war” and it had
no option but to pre-emptively invade Poland, thereby halting the alleged Polish
plans to invade Germany. Berlin's claims
were wholly fabricated. The design of
the UN was undertaken during the war and structurally was different from the LoN; an
attempt to create an institution which could prevent aggression.
There
have been no lack of examples since 1939.
Both the British and Germans staged pre-emptive invasions of Norway in
1940 though the IMT at Nuremberg was no more anxious to discuss this Allied transgression
than they were war crimes or crimes against humanity by anyone except the
Nazis. The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
in 1941 proceeded without undue difficulty but that couldn’t be said of the
Suez Crisis of 1956 when the British, French and Israelis staged an war of
aggression which not even London was hypocritical enough to claim was pre-emption
or preventive; they called it a peace-keeping operation, a claim again wholly
fabricated. The Six-Day War (1967) which
began when Israel attached Egypt is regarded by most in the West as pre-emptive rather
than preventive because of the wealth of evidence suggesting Egypt was preparing
to attack although the term “interceptive self-defense” has also be coined
although, except as admirable sophistry, it’s not clear if this is either
descriptive or helpful. However,
whatever the view, Israel’s actions in 1967 would seem not to satisfy the Caroline
test but whether “…leaving no choice of
means, and no moment for deliberation”, written in the age of the “flutter
of carrier pigeons and splutter of musketry” could by 1967 reasonably be held to convey quite the same meaning was
obviously questionable.
Interest
in the doctrine of pre-emption was renewed following the US invasion of Iraq
(2003). The White House claimed the action was a necessity
to intervene to prevent Iraq from deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
prior to launching an armed attack. Subsequently,
it was found no WMDs by then existed but the more interesting legal point is whether
the US invasion would have been lawful had WMDs been found (Iraq’s resistance to the attack was
lawful regardless of the status of the US attack). The
relevant sections (Article 2, Section 4) of the UN Charter are considered jus cogens (literally "compelling
law" (ie “international law”)). They
prohibit all UN members from exercising "the threat or use of force
against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state". However, this apparently absolute
prohibition must be read in conjunction with the phrase "armed attack
occurs" (Article 51, Section 37) which differentiates between legitimate
and illegitimate military force. It
states that if no armed attack has occurred, no automatic justification for
pre-emptive self-defense has yet been made lawful under the charter and in order
to be justified, two conditions must be fulfilled: (1) that the state must have
believed the threat is real and not mere mere perception and (2) that the
force used must be proportional to the harm threatened. As history has illustrated, those words permit much scope for the sufficiently imaginative.
Pre-emptive
progress on the ground, March-July 2022: At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (June
2025), Mr Putin would describe what really should be regarded as the “Putin
doctrine”: “We
have a saying, or a parable: Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is
ours”, adding he regarded Russians and Ukrainians to be one people
and “in that
sense the whole of Ukraine is ours.”
Mr Putin (Vladimir Putin (b 1952; prime-minister or president of Russia since 1999)), although avoiding distasteful words like "aggression" “war” or “invasion”, did use
the language associated with pre-emptive and preventive wars in his formal
justification for Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine. Firstly he claimed, Russia is using force in
self-defence, pursuant to Article 51 of the Charter, to protect itself from a threat
emanating from Ukraine. This threat, if
real, could justify pre-emptive self-defence because, even if an attack was not “imminent”,
there was still an existential threat so grave it was necessary immediately
to act (essentially the same argument the US used in 2003). This view met with little support, most
holding any such theory of pre-emption is incompatible with Article 51 which
really is restricted to permitting anticipatory self-defence in response to
imminent attacks. Secondly he cited the right of collective self-defence of the
Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” although neither are states and even if one
accepts they’ve been subject to a Ukrainian attack, the extent of Russia’s
military intervention and the goal of regime change in Kyiv appear far to
exceed the customary criteria of necessity and proportionality. Finally, the Kremlin claimed the special
military action was undertaken as a humanitarian intervention, the need to stop
or prevent a genocide of Russians in eastern Ukraine. Few troubled themselves to comment on this last point.
