Throughout history, presidents and congresses have jockeyed for control over war powers. Article I of the Constitution grants Congress the exclusive authority to declare war, while Article II names the President as “Commander in Chief” of the army, navy and militia. The jockeying reached a watershed moment of congressional assertiveness with the passage of the 1973 War Powers Act. Since then, however, presidential war-making power has been in a state of near-constant expansion—an expansion only accelerated by overseas counterterrorism actions and recent presidential military actions in Libya and Syria.
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On this day in 1918, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of a national draft. That ruling illustrates how military powers in the Constitution have continuously adapted throughout American history to changes in warfare.
The memo provides the legal rationale behind the controversial January 2, 2020, drone strike that killed Major General Qassem Soleimani of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and several leaders of the militia Kata’ib Hezbollah while in Baghdad, Iraq.
Current congressional action related to the possible repeal of outdated force authorizations against Iraq will do little to affect the executive branch’s use of military force behavior in the region.
On April 4, the Biden administration released the
On Tuesday, March 23, 2021, at 1:00 p.m., the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on reclaiming congressional war powers.
On Tuesday, March 23, 2021, at 11:00 a.m., the House Rules Committee will hold a hearing on reforming the War Powers Resolution.
Join us for a discussion about the Biden administration's views on war powers issues.
On Feb. 25, Biden ordered airstrikes against targets in eastern Syria. His subsequent letter to Congress under the War Powers Resolution is notable in several ways.
Amidst an ongoing debate over aging AUMFs, how does the president view the war powers? Biden's long tenure in the federal government suggests that while he might claim broad war authority, he will not use major force absent significant congressional support.
An ongoing foreign policy debate over whether the United States should clarify a security guarantee to Taiwan needs to consider Congress's role in such a policy.