Waging War: Structural vs. Political Eficacy

Abstract

How does the structure of America's constitutional system affect the process and quality of U.S. war making? Ambiguities in the U.S. Constitution have long served as an "invitation to struggle" over executive and congressional war making powers. How should these powers be shared between the executive and legislative branches to structure policy processes for both effective and legitimate war making? This age old problem is compounded by the fact that the United States is in a state of semi-war in today's tumultuous and conflict-ridden world. Never have the threats confronting the United States been more complex, lethal, omnipresent, and insoluble-ranging from the potential for nuclear holocaust to small wars of unprecedented variety, complexity, and intractability. In addition to the current checks-and-balances system, three alternative regimes of executive-legislative war-making roles-presidential supremacy, parliamentary, and congressional supremacy-are analyzed. Although structurally flawed in terms of its inefficiencies and political frictions, the existing checks-and-balances system is better than its alternatives in terms of its appropriateness for shaping effective and legitimate war making in today's international environment.