The domestic and geopolitical disaster of the Vietnam War, and the process that took the United States into such a large-scale and protracted conflict, led Congress to reinforce its checks on executive war powers. The resulting War Powers Resolution (WPR) sought to inject Congress back into the decision-making process, yet no President has ever acknowledged its constitutionality. The initial debates around the WPR revealed four major lines of argument on the balance of war powers; three of those continued to be made over the next 40 years, as Presidents from both political parties deployed U.S. forces abroad, often without Congressional authorization. This study analyzed the prevalence and distribution of those lines of argument in the U.S. Senate over the Republican Administration of President George W. Bush and the Democratic Administration of President Barack Obama. Both administrations were involved in multiple deployments of U.S. forces abroad, and experienced opposition from both parties. The study found that Democrats displayed consistency across both administrations, indicating a preference for institutional loyalty in supporting compliance with the WPR, whereas Republicans tended to support the status quo. In addition, the study found that Senators from both parties acknowledged the rapidly changing nature of warfare as new technologies mostly remove U.S. armed forces from harm's way even as they conduct lethal strikes. What effect this has on Congress's ability and willingness to further check executive war powers remains to be seen, but it is clear that the debate is far from over. / Master of Arts / The Vietnam War led Congress to reinforce its checks on executive war powers. The resulting War Powers Resolution (WPR) sought to inject Congress back into the decision-making process. The initial debates around the WPR revealed four major lines of argument on the balance of war powers; three of those continued to be made over the next 40 years. This study looked at those three lines of argument in the U.S. Senate over the Republican Administration of President George W. Bush and the Democratic Administration of President Barack Obama. The study found that Democrats consistently took a position that defended the powers of the Congress, whereas Republicans tended to support a status quo that deferred to the power of the President. In addition, the study found that Senators from both parties acknowledged the rapidly changing nature of warfare. What effect this has on Congress’s ability and willingness to further check executive war powers remains to be seen, but it is clear that the debate is far from over.

During the last four decades, precisely from the early 1970s, U.S. foreign policy has played a dominant role in the U.S. political landscape. The current political discourse is predominantly marked by divided government, polarized politics and gridlock. Such a contentious political environment has proved to be detrimental for efficient and effective policy-making in foreign policy. There are significant factors that profoundly complicate the process of decision making and congressional-presidential relations. Partisan and ideological differences under the conditions of divided government are dominant in the current political process and in turn affect the prospects of legislative-executive consensus and dissension. Other factors such as media salience, public opinion, and electoral imperatives also complicate the dynamics of legislative-executive relations. In an era in which heightened political brinkmanship has enveloped Washington politics, continuum of consensus and dissension between Congress and the president on strategic foreign policy issues has virtually become a norm. This dissertation examines the dynamics of legislative-executive relations in two high politics U.S. foreign policy issue areas of treaty process and war powers. It appears that in contemporary U.S. foreign policymaking the trajectory of a continuum of legislative-executive consensus and dissension is a new normal and potentially irreversible, as Congress and the president try ardently to preserve their respective constitutional prerogatives. Empirical investigation across these two issue areas demonstrates a new era of a resurgent Congress marked by its greater assertive role and acting as a consequential player in the foreign policy domain. The passage of the War Powers Resolution in 1973 by Congress, overriding a presidential veto, has profound implications in the modern political landscape. It was a pivotal moment that permanently transformed the future road map of congressional-presidential relations. Since then the U.S. political system has been relentlessly experiencing an institutional power struggle in the foreign policy domain. Findings suggest that when Congress determines to confront the president and exercise its constitutional responsibilities it becomes very difficult for the president to overcome such congressional resistance. Interbranch competition has virtually created a consistent trajectory of a continuum of legislative-executive consensus and dissension in the foreign policy decision-making process.

Before the United States Constitution was ratified there was much debate about what war powers the executive and legislative branches should hold. After much deliberation it was decided that the power to declare war would fall under the control of Congress. But as time passed, control over initiating military action began to shift from Congress to the President. This thesis examines the shift of power from the legislature to the President. The thesis explains the difference between a declaration of war, an authorization of force, as well as using the military as a police force. It examines the precedents set by Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, as well as the more recent methods used by Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. It also analyzes some of the major court cases that have dealt with the War Powers Clause and several War Powers Resolution. The information collected in this thesis comes from biographies, journal articles, and newspaper articles regarding the subject. This thesis shows that the executive has taken more power in initiating and continuing armed conflict and that the declaration of war, as defined in the Constitution, is obsolete.

Since World War II, the executive branch has dominated foreign policy and national security decisions, expanding war powers well beyond the president’s constitutional purview. Aided by a complicit Congress, the president has bypassed the legislator and unilaterally prosecuted some of the United States’ bloodiest conflicts. Continuing this tradition of executive overreach, Congress passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) on September 14, 2001, which ostensibly empowered the president to pursue those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, namely al Qaeda and the nations supporting them. However, the broadly-worded force authorization and equally far-reaching legal interpretations by the executive branch turned the AUMF into a nearly limitless authorization. Since its passage, the AUMF has provided the legal backstop for the war in Afghanistan, drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere, National Security Agency surveillance, and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Enabled by the AUMF, the “war on terror” has eroded civil liberties, allowed extrajudicial killings, and transformed the conflict with al Qaeda into a war without end. In order to end the destructive legacies of the war on terror and begin to reverse the trend of executive overreach, Congress and the president should repeal the AUMF and update the force authorization regime.

Tony Blair’s extraordinary decision to ask for Parliament’s approval for British military deployment in the Iraq War prompted lingering questions about who decides on matters of war and peace in modern Britain. His successors’ use, and thereby confirmation, of the new parliamentary prerogative suggested a fundamental reorganization of war powers in British politics, giving Parliament a significantly stronger position in the realm of foreign affairs. This paper argues that a number of factors, like a Prime Minister’s leadership style, the role Cabinet and the civil service, and Parliament’s governing disadvantages that makes it difficult for Members of Parliament to assert themselves proactively rather than reactively, make the prospect of a “War Powers Act” enshrining Parliament’s constitutional role in authorizing war highly unlikely.

The struggle between the President and the Congress over the power to control the use of military force is an enduring dimension of U.S. foreign policy. In the 20th century Arthur Schlesinger labeled the growth of Presidential war power the “Imperial Presidency.” While some scholars have attempted to explain the expansion of Presidential power based on the Cold War or nuclear weapons, there has been little work studying the link between America’s ascending role in international legal frameworks and this domestic legal transformation. In this dissertation, I argue that America’s participation in international legal frameworks, such as the United Nations and NATO, has been a central factor in enabling the growth of Presidential war power. These international frameworks allow the President to circumvent Congress and to assert that the use of military force was something other than a ‘war’ that would need Congressional authorization. In case studies of pre-WWII aid to Great Britain, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, I demonstrate how the rise of executive war power relied on America’s growing participation in international legal frameworks. The dissertation contributes to the nexus of International Relations and Constitutional scholarship. It offers a unique interpretation of Presidential war power while also offering new insights on the nature of the United States’ relationship with international legal frameworks. I argue that participation in international legal frameworks has been ‘democracy-undermining’ as the President utilizes those frameworks to circumvent the Constitution’s restrictions on Presidential war power.

Approved for public release / The atrocities committed by Americans at Abu Ghraib shocked the collective American moral conscience. Guilty of inhumane treatment of its prisoners there, Abu Ghraib did immeasurable damage to U.S. credibility and made clear that American detainee policy is off-track and needs to comply with objective standards of law, morality, and operational effectiveness. The emotional aftermath of 9/11 created a politically permissive environment within which the military organizational structures was unsuited for the critical tasks assigned to them relative to the context of the Bush Administration’s “new paradigm.” Two issues sit at the forefront of the political context of U.S. detainee policy: war powers and human rights. This thesis will utilize a synthesized decision-making model to analyze the President’s decisions leading to the current detainee policy. Policy alternatives require smaller corrections to bureaucratic process, not a major reorganization of bureaucratic structure. This thesis will provide policy-makers with a moral and legal framework for a corrected detainee policy. Adoption of the full framework of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, including U.S. ratification of Additional Protocols I and II (1977), provides the best framework to combat transnational insurgency, while retaining the moral and legal high ground required of the world’s superpower. / Major, United States Air Force

A tese aborda o chamado poder de guerra nos Estados Unidos da América buscando compreender a dinâmica institucional da decisão sobre a utilização das forças armadas no exterior à luz das regras constitucionais e da experiência histórica daquele país. A controvérsia basicamente estabelecida é sobre quem, afinal, seria o soberano dos poderes de guerra, ou seja, se o Poder Legislativo ou o Poder Executivo possuiriam o poder de levar o país à guerra. Com esse objetivo, a tese analisa a denominada Cláusula da Guerra que assegura ao Congresso o poder de declarar a guerra, e também a Cláusula do Comandante-em-Chefe, que dá ao presidente o comando das forças militares do país. Nossa hipótese principal de trabalho assevera de que há, à luz do intento original, uma prevalência dos poderes de guerra do presidente dos Estados Unidos, representado, por sua vez, em seu controle da soberania sobre a decisão da guerra, que desafia a Constituição e seu sistema de checks and balances levando a uma hipertrofia do Poder Executivo. No esforço de compreender essa inflexão realizamos uma análise da decisão da Guerra da Coreia em 1950. A Coreia é compreendida como um caso paradigmático que expressa a institucionalização dos poderes de guerra do presidente, com a autonomização da Cláusula do Comandante-em-Chefe em relação à Cláusula da Guerra. Constatamos que a dinâmica de decisão encontrada na Guerra da Coreia faz parte de um processo ainda em andamento de fortalecimento do poder presidencial, prejudicando o cumprimento da Cláusula da Guerra. Constatamos que a dinâmica de decisão encontrada na Guerra da Coreia faz parte de um processo ainda em andamento de fortalecimento do poder presidencial, prejudicando o cumprimento da Cláusula da Guerra. Outra hipótese da tese é a de que decisões para o uso da força originadas de organizações multilaterais como o Conselho de Segurança da ONU e a OTAN têm favorecido a prevalência do poder de guerra do presidente dos Estados Unidos, uma vez que elas têm sido interpretadas como substitutas de decisões de autorização que teriam que ser tomadas apenas pelo Congresso. / This thesis addresses the so-called war power in the United States, seeking to understand the institutional dynamics of the decision on the use of armed forces abroad in the light of the constitutional provisions and the historical experience of the country. The established controversy is on who, after all, is invested by the sovereign powers of war, ie, whether it is the legislature or the executive who would possess the power to take the country to war. With this objective, this thesis analyzes the so-called War Clause which ensures to Congress the power to declare war, and also the Commander in Chief Clause, which gives the President the command of the military forces of the country. Our working hypothesis asserts that there is, in the light of the original intent, a prevalence of war powers of the President of the United States, represented by its turn, in its sovereign control over the decision of war that defies the Constitution and its system of checks and balances, leading to the hypertrophy of the Executive Branch. In an effort to understand this shift we conducted a study about the decision of the Korean War in 1950. Korea is understood as a paradigmatic case that expresses the institutionalization of the war powers of the president, with the empowerment of the Commander in Chief Clause vis-à-vis the War Clause. We observe that the dynamics of the decision found in the Korean War is part of a still ongoing process of strengthening of presidential power, hampering the use of the War Clause. Another hypothesis of the thesis is that the decisions to use force originating from multilateral organizations such as the UN Security Council and NATO have favored the prevalence of the power of war of the President of the United States, as they have been interpreted as a substitute for authorization decisions that would have to be taken only by Congress.

A tese aborda o chamado poder de guerra nos Estados Unidos da América buscando compreender a dinâmica institucional da decisão sobre a utilização das forças armadas no exterior à luz das regras constitucionais e da experiência histórica daquele país. A controvérsia basicamente estabelecida é sobre quem, afinal, seria o soberano dos poderes de guerra, ou seja, se o Poder Legislativo ou o Poder Executivo possuiriam o poder de levar o país à guerra. Com esse objetivo, a tese analisa a denominada Cláusula da Guerra que assegura ao Congresso o poder de declarar a guerra, e também a Cláusula do Comandante-em-Chefe, que dá ao presidente o comando das forças militares do país. Nossa hipótese principal de trabalho assevera de que há, à luz do intento original, uma prevalência dos poderes de guerra do presidente dos Estados Unidos, representado, por sua vez, em seu controle da soberania sobre a decisão da guerra, que desafia a Constituição e seu sistema de checks and balances levando a uma hipertrofia do Poder Executivo. No esforço de compreender essa inflexão realizamos uma análise da decisão da Guerra da Coreia em 1950. A Coreia é compreendida como um caso paradigmático que expressa a institucionalização dos poderes de guerra do presidente, com a autonomização da Cláusula do Comandante-em-Chefe em relação à Cláusula da Guerra. Constatamos que a dinâmica de decisão encontrada na Guerra da Coreia faz parte de um processo ainda em andamento de fortalecimento do poder presidencial, prejudicando o cumprimento da Cláusula da Guerra. Constatamos que a dinâmica de decisão encontrada na Guerra da Coreia faz parte de um processo ainda em andamento de fortalecimento do poder presidencial, prejudicando o cumprimento da Cláusula da Guerra. Outra hipótese da tese é a de que decisões para o uso da força originadas de organizações multilaterais como o Conselho de Segurança da ONU e a OTAN têm favorecido a prevalência do poder de guerra do presidente dos Estados Unidos, uma vez que elas têm sido interpretadas como substitutas de decisões de autorização que teriam que ser tomadas apenas pelo Congresso. / This thesis addresses the so-called war power in the United States, seeking to understand the institutional dynamics of the decision on the use of armed forces abroad in the light of the constitutional provisions and the historical experience of the country. The established controversy is on who, after all, is invested by the sovereign powers of war, ie, whether it is the legislature or the executive who would possess the power to take the country to war. With this objective, this thesis analyzes the so-called War Clause which ensures to Congress the power to declare war, and also the Commander in Chief Clause, which gives the President the command of the military forces of the country. Our working hypothesis asserts that there is, in the light of the original intent, a prevalence of war powers of the President of the United States, represented by its turn, in its sovereign control over the decision of war that defies the Constitution and its system of checks and balances, leading to the hypertrophy of the Executive Branch. In an effort to understand this shift we conducted a study about the decision of the Korean War in 1950. Korea is understood as a paradigmatic case that expresses the institutionalization of the war powers of the president, with the empowerment of the Commander in Chief Clause vis-à-vis the War Clause. We observe that the dynamics of the decision found in the Korean War is part of a still ongoing process of strengthening of presidential power, hampering the use of the War Clause. Another hypothesis of the thesis is that the decisions to use force originating from multilateral organizations such as the UN Security Council and NATO have favored the prevalence of the power of war of the President of the United States, as they have been interpreted as a substitute for authorization decisions that would have to be taken only by Congress.

A tese aborda o chamado poder de guerra nos Estados Unidos da América buscando compreender a dinâmica institucional da decisão sobre a utilização das forças armadas no exterior à luz das regras constitucionais e da experiência histórica daquele país. A controvérsia basicamente estabelecida é sobre quem, afinal, seria o soberano dos poderes de guerra, ou seja, se o Poder Legislativo ou o Poder Executivo possuiriam o poder de levar o país à guerra. Com esse objetivo, a tese analisa a denominada Cláusula da Guerra que assegura ao Congresso o poder de declarar a guerra, e também a Cláusula do Comandante-em-Chefe, que dá ao presidente o comando das forças militares do país. Nossa hipótese principal de trabalho assevera de que há, à luz do intento original, uma prevalência dos poderes de guerra do presidente dos Estados Unidos, representado, por sua vez, em seu controle da soberania sobre a decisão da guerra, que desafia a Constituição e seu sistema de checks and balances levando a uma hipertrofia do Poder Executivo. No esforço de compreender essa inflexão realizamos uma análise da decisão da Guerra da Coreia em 1950. A Coreia é compreendida como um caso paradigmático que expressa a institucionalização dos poderes de guerra do presidente, com a autonomização da Cláusula do Comandante-em-Chefe em relação à Cláusula da Guerra. Constatamos que a dinâmica de decisão encontrada na Guerra da Coreia faz parte de um processo ainda em andamento de fortalecimento do poder presidencial, prejudicando o cumprimento da Cláusula da Guerra. Constatamos que a dinâmica de decisão encontrada na Guerra da Coreia faz parte de um processo ainda em andamento de fortalecimento do poder presidencial, prejudicando o cumprimento da Cláusula da Guerra. Outra hipótese da tese é a de que decisões para o uso da força originadas de organizações multilaterais como o Conselho de Segurança da ONU e a OTAN têm favorecido a prevalência do poder de guerra do presidente dos Estados Unidos, uma vez que elas têm sido interpretadas como substitutas de decisões de autorização que teriam que ser tomadas apenas pelo Congresso. / This thesis addresses the so-called war power in the United States, seeking to understand the institutional dynamics of the decision on the use of armed forces abroad in the light of the constitutional provisions and the historical experience of the country. The established controversy is on who, after all, is invested by the sovereign powers of war, ie, whether it is the legislature or the executive who would possess the power to take the country to war. With this objective, this thesis analyzes the so-called War Clause which ensures to Congress the power to declare war, and also the Commander in Chief Clause, which gives the President the command of the military forces of the country. Our working hypothesis asserts that there is, in the light of the original intent, a prevalence of war powers of the President of the United States, represented by its turn, in its sovereign control over the decision of war that defies the Constitution and its system of checks and balances, leading to the hypertrophy of the Executive Branch. In an effort to understand this shift we conducted a study about the decision of the Korean War in 1950. Korea is understood as a paradigmatic case that expresses the institutionalization of the war powers of the president, with the empowerment of the Commander in Chief Clause vis-à-vis the War Clause. We observe that the dynamics of the decision found in the Korean War is part of a still ongoing process of strengthening of presidential power, hampering the use of the War Clause. Another hypothesis of the thesis is that the decisions to use force originating from multilateral organizations such as the UN Security Council and NATO have favored the prevalence of the power of war of the President of the United States, as they have been interpreted as a substitute for authorization decisions that would have to be taken only by Congress.