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A classmate and I were talking about the precautionary principle after we had a lecture on it this week. She brought up American national security doctrine and said that if there was a clear threat to American security, the USA would preventatively intervene even without proof - and that this is an example of the precautionary principle (to clarifiy, "[T]he precautionary principle states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those who advocate taking the action".).

Is this the case, was it ever the case?

All I could come up with was that she wasn't being very specific when she was talking about "national security doctrine", as it has changed over the years, but I didn't have any more concrete arguements, due in part to lack of familiarity with the doctrine (past and current).

Help would be greatly appreciated.
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Er, yes. It sounds like the standard "burden of proof"- those making a claim have to provide evidence that the claim is true.

She's wrong. Look at the NPR/QDR, it's chock-full of the Military saying that they would never intervene into a situation without credible proof of a threat, and therefore the military MUST increase its threat-finding capabilities.