Introduction: The Rise of Preventive Warfare

This chapter provides an overview of the main themes covered by the book. The chapter starts with a description of how the preventive warfare paradigm emerged in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks when the Bush administration authorized the CIA to run a detention program to prevent future threats from materializing. The second part of the chapter briefly examines the preventive measures used in law enforcement (e.g., the criminalization of preparatory actions, mass surveillance, and the collection of digital data) and their main flaws (e.g., overly broad definitions of preventive criminal offenses, the use of weak indicators to detect “threats,” the erosion of human rights and fundamental freedoms). The third part outlines the main objectives of the book—and the methodology used in the research—by summarizing the subject themes of each chapter.