Founders' Fuzziness

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But Presidents have consistently dominated this long-running political contest--conspicuously including F.D.R., who eventually wore down isolationist sentiment and took the country into World War II. And while there have been only five formally declared wars, the U.S. has deployed its armed forces abroad more than 200 times, usually with some kind of congressional assent or at least acquiescence--from Thomas Jefferson's naval expedition against the Barbary pirates of North Africa to numerous interventions in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Vietnam marked a notable chapter in this vexed history. Reflecting widespread disillusionment with that failed war, the War Powers Act of 1973 sought to severely limit the President's capacity to send troops abroad without explicit authority from Congress. It passed into law only over Richard Nixon's veto. All subsequent Presidents have refused to recognize its constitutionality. It has not yet been subjected to a full constitutional test before the Supreme Court.

Congress continues to wield the power of the purse, but if history is any guide, the legislators will have little stomach for withholding resources from troops already in the field. Once again the President will have the upper hand. Despite the founders' best intentions, the world's oldest democracy still has a chronically deficient mechanism for bringing democratic practices meaningfully to bear on the waging of war.

Kennedy is a history professor at Stanford University and a 2000 Pulitzer prizewinner