WEEK 15: Presidential War Making Powers



A Caisson carries the remains of Army Captain John Ryan Dennison during funeral services at 

Arlington National Cemetery, Wednesday, November 29, 2006



The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Captain John R. Dennison, 24, of Ijamsville, Maryland, died on November 15, 2006, in Balad, Iraq, as a result of small arms fire. Dennison was assigned to 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

THIS LAST CLASS IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF CPT JOHN RYAN DENNISON, THE SON OF JACK AND SHANNON DENNISON, OLD FRIENDS OF OURS FROM MY EARLIER MILITARY DAYS. PLEASE GO HERE TO SEE MORE ABOUT THE LIFE AND FAMILY OF JOHN RYAN DENNISON.

In this our last class, we will review the constitutional framework for presidential war powers and discover that the Constitution does not provide us with authoritative answers as to how the powers of the president as commander in chief are to be exercised. In fact, the debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 focused on the power of Congress to declare war and specific powers over the military found in Article 1. However, the commander in chief clause found in Article 2 of the Constitution does give some specific powers to the president and this forms the basis for the debate over presidential power in times of national emergency.

This week in our class handout we will discuss the following topics:

• A Christian Perspective on War
• The Constitutional Framework
• Presidents and the Military Establishment
• The Military Chain of Command
• Presidential Use of the Armed Forces
• Legitimizing Presidential War Making
• The War Powers Resolution of 1973

In more than 300 instances, U.S. presidents have relied on their constitutional prerogatives as commander in chief to use the armed forces abroad in situations of conflict or potential conflict to protect U.S. citizens or promote U.S. interests. Fewer than half of these situations involved any prior legislative or Congressional authorization. In September 2012, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) prepared for Congress an updated report and detailed listing of notable deployments of U.S. Military Forces overseas between 1798 and 2012. To view this listing click on here. In fact there have been only five (5) times in American history when presidents have used the armed forces with congressional declarations of war.

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush named the Axis-of-Evil nations in his response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Since then there has been legitimate debate and interpretations of the Catholic just war tradition by Christians as they formulate a responsible U.S. answer to the terrorist threat. In this 2005 article "Bush vs. Benedict", you can read here how Catholic neoconservatives grapple with their Church's just war tradition. 

Mean while back in 2001, after the 9/11 attack, James V. Schall, S.J. wrote an extensive commentary on the War on Terror entitled "Assessing What is at Issue in this War" and Patrick Buchanan commented on Colin Powell's remarks on Terrorism on the 6th anniversary of 9-11 in his article "Is Terrorism Really a Mortal Threat?".

In June 2012, Mr. Buchanan offered commentary on the uprising in Syria by contrasting it to the Spanish Civil War which he describes as the Great Rehearsal for World War II in his article "Dress Rehearsal for a Mideast War?". And most recently last month, he analyzed the darkness of the current situation in the Middle East and suggests President Obama ask himself this question, "How would America's vital interests be imperiled by staying out of this particular quarrel, conflict or war?"  See his article entitled "Is Middle East Peace a Mirage?"

The neoconservatives are not really conservatives at all. They are impostors and opportunists. — Where the Right Went Wrong