In Frederick Bastiat’s “The Law” he defines the principles for sound government. One of his premises he advocates is that man can only delegate to his government powers that he possesses. Since a man can not initiate force against another unless he is defending his life, liberty or property, he can not delegate to his government to the right to violate the unalienable rights of people living in a foreign state. A nation that initites force against it must be in the defense of their rights. Pre-emptive strikes are a violation of the principles of sound government.
Read what Frederick Bastiat had to say about the subject:
What Is Law?
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God —to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force— his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right— its reason for existing, its lawfulness —is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason —cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all