Preemption by Armed Force of Trans-boundary Terrorist Threats: The Russian Perspective

• Author: Bakhtiyar R. Tuzmukhamedov
• Position: Professor, Diplomatic Academy, Moscow, Russia
• Pages: 83-95

VI

Preemption by Armed Force

of Trans-boundary Terrorist Threats:

The Russian Perspective

Bakhtiyar R. Tuzmukhamedov*

Azealous legalist would argue that Russia, or rather its predecessor the Soviet

Union, has repeatedly demonstrated its inclination to use armed force in

the absence of an actual attack against itself. Precedents that would likely be cited

include the "Winter War" of 1939-40 against Finland, and the interventions in

Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Some might add the deployment

to Afghanistan in 1979 or, in paradoxical contradistinction to those examples, the

Wehrmacht attack against the USSR which was launched in 1941, at least as

claimed by Nazi leaders and some contemporary historians, to forestall an immi-

nent Red Army assault.

Whatever the merits of those alleged precedents, in its declaratory policy and

formal acts, the Soviet Union abided by arather narrow, or restrictive, interpreta-

tion of the principle of non-use of force. It acceded to the Treaty for the Renuncia-

tion of War (the Kellogg-Briand Pact) of 1928 1and was aparty to the Convention

for the Definition of Aggression of 1933.2Although the latter might seem aless

classical source, Justice Jackson in his opening address for the United States at the

*Professor, Diplomatic Academy, Moscow, Russia. The views expressed herein are solely those

of the author.