Pre-emptive war

Okay kiddo, imagine you have a toy truck and your friend wants to take it from you.

Normally, you would try to negotiate with your friend and find a way to share the truck or play together. But what if your friend keeps trying to take the truck away and you start to feel like your friend might snatch it away from you at any moment?

That's kind of like what pre-emptive war is. It's when one country believes another country might attack them in the future, so they try to stop that from happening by attacking the other country first.

Just like you might feel scared and want to protect your toy truck, a country might feel scared and want to protect its people, its resources, or its interests.

However, pre-emptive war is controversial because it can sometimes lead to a lot of violence and destruction. It's important to try to solve problems through talking and negotiation first, just like you would with your friend and your toy truck.