High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A preemptive war is a war that is commenced in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived inevitable offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending (allegedly unavoidable) war before that threat materializes. It is a war which preemptively `breaks the peace`. The term: `preemptive war` is sometimes confused with the term: `preventive war`. The difference is that a preventive war is launched to destroy the potential threat of an enemy, when an attack by that party is not imminent or known to be planned, while a preemptive war is launched in anticipation of immediate enemy aggression. Most contemporary scholarship equates preventive war with aggression, and therefore argues that it is illegitimate. The waging of a preemptive war has less stigma attached than does the waging of a preventive war. The initiation of armed conflict: that is being the first to `break the peace` when no `armed attack` has yet occurred, is not permitted by the UN Charter (see `Legality` below), unless authorized by the UN Security Council as an enforcement action. (Some authors have claimed that when a presumed adversary first appears to be beginning confirmable preparations for a possible future attack, but has not yet actually attacked, that the attack has in fact `already begun`, however this opinion has not been upheld by the UN.)