RESPONSIBLE ACTION

President Biden’s recent Syria airstrike has prompted fresh controversy as lawmakers, particularly Democratic ones, questioned the President’s authority for giving the go-ahead for these strikes. To be sure, the President is given the role of Commander-in-Chief of all the branches of the armed forces of the USA. But, the Constitution only gives authority to Congress to declare war. Since the founding of the United States, this ambiguous division of war powers has meant that the US presidents have had to cautiously push the envelope, developing precedents set by their predecessors in regards to war powers.

It was during the time of Harry S Truman in the postWar era that the US presidents truly took on most of the warmaking authority in the United States. Truman believed that the Cold War required prompt action and decision-making at every turn and in every theatre of conflict if the US were to defeat the USSR. As such, when Truman ordered American troops to intercede in the Korean War, he did so without prior or retrospective permission from Congress, setting a new precedent for future presidents to follow. This, as many historians have noted, was in direct contradiction to the wishes of the constitution-makers of America who wished for the president to have a more ceremonial role in regards to war whereas Congress was the actual authority when it came to declaring war and raising and maintaining war-making capabilities. Congress has the authority to rule on both large-scale wars and limited ones, negating Truman’s assertion that he hadn’t taken permission for the Korea action as the country wasn’t technically at war.

Contest this to his predecessor Franklin D Roosevelt who, despite the clear act of war committed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour, still deigned it a matter of absolute significance for him to go get permission from Congress before going to war. Ultimately, Congress allowed Truman’s transgression on its constitutional duty, letting the genie out of the bottle for good so to speak. After Truman, the balance of war powers decisively shifted in favour of the presidency. Several other unauthorised interventions took place with the latest being that of Yemen where the US was dragged into a war not of its own, making it at the behest of its Saudi allies. Congress, with bipartisan legislation, has ever since tried to extricate America from the conflict.

What makes presidential powers to make war an even more complicated topic is the use of nuclear weapons. The briefcase popularly known as the ‘nuclear football’ gives the US presidents absolute authority to initiate a nuclear launch without seeking any permission from Congress. The Pentagon is legally obligated to follow through with the instructions or face the consequences. If hypothetically, a president chooses to launch America’s considerable arsenal, they would not need to explain themselves in any form or fashion at the time of launch. There is a need to prove ‘justifiable cause’ but this comes after the launch has already been made. Needless to say, placing such unrestricted power in the hands of one person — even if they have been popularly elected — can seem somewhat problematic given the unimaginable consequences of such action. Thus, since the end of the Cold War-era, there has been a demand for the launch authorisation protocols for the US to be revised. A similar movement to affect change has also been started in the Biden era with Democratic lawmakers asking for the launch authorisation process to be widened beyond just the US President to the Vice President and Speaker of the House.

To be sure, there is a need to bring in clearly defined legislation in Congress to mark out the war-making powers of the president and Congress while taking into account the modern scenario. This is not a time when large-scale conflict can break out at a moment’s notice. The world faces different challenges now that do not require the US President to have such unchecked war powers. But, any such legislative attempt must have the support of a sitting US president and even then it is likely to run into stiff partisan opposition in a divided Congress.