Assess the Constraints on the President’s Role as Commander-in-Chief.

Article II of the United States Constitution gives the president the role of ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of the US’s Armed Forces, and this role provides the basis for rapid and effective decision-making, whilst maintaining the credibility of the USA’s foreign policy on the world stage. However, there are certain constraints on the President’s role as Commander-in-Chief’. One constraint on this power is that only Congress has the power to declare war. Congress can also authorise the president to deploy his country’s armed forces. Since the Constitution was created, Congress has only declared war a total of five times (in both World Wars, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War), and this power has not been used since 1941. These authorisations are ordered by the President however, showing just how interlinked the powers of the president and Congress really are. One example of when the timing of a congressional authorisation can be crucial is the vote on action against Iraq, a few months before the 2002 midterm elections. This congressional authorisation was manipulated by George W Bush, and shows that the president can take advantage of this and make a decision with a Congress that has a majority of his party as members, rather than waiting until after a midterm when he might not be so sure as to have a key decision go his way. The relationship between Congress and the president was confirmed by the War Powers Act of 1973, passed in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.
This Act reins in the war-making authority of the president by demanding that the executive notify Congress within 48 hours after deploying the armed forces in combat. The presidents after Nixon have generally complied with the requirements of the Act, however they have all argued that the Act infringes on the president’s constitutional duty as Commander-in-Chief. They are well in their right to believe that, but many constitutional scholars maintain that Congress is within its right to exercise oversight in foreign policy matters, reining in the executive where necessary.
There have been several examples in the 20th century that would suggest that there are not enough constraints on the president’s role as Commander-in-Chief. Lyndon B Johnson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are three presidents that have stretched the Constitution in their role. In the 1960s, Johnson personally selected targets for bombing missions in North Vietnam; in the 1970s Nixon authorised secret operations in Cambodia and Laos (widely condemned as being beyond his constitutional powers); and in the 1980s Reagan was embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal after his administration was found to have secretly sold weapons to Iran and channelled the funds to Nicaraguan rebels seeking to overthrow their Communist government. These examples prove that presidents are not completely constrained in their Commander-in-Chief role, even though there are still numerous constitutional checks on the president’s foreign policy powers; foreign treaties require the ratification of two-thirds of the senate, all senior diplomats and senior forces personnel require majority senate ratification, and Congress alone can declare war, though the president does have the capacity, as previously mentioned, to engage troops briefly in minor conflicts.