I think the argument would be that being proactive is a sort of defense, and a good one because it is cheaper and saves more lives than waiting until things are

I think the argument would be that being proactive is a sort of defense, and a good one because it is cheaper and saves more lives than waiting until things are really bad. Of course, not waiting for things to get really bad means that we can't know if the intervention is too heavy-handed or even exploitative.