The Change In The Power Of The US Presidency

The Change in the Power of the US Presidency

Introduction

The United States can perform vindicatory intrusions, under the direction of its president, for instance, in 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan. Wars can be circuitously impelled or spontaneous, as with the invasions of Iraq by U.S. in 1990 and 2003. Like Vietnam and Korea, involvement of U.S. military can be considerable. It could be an air strike like the one took place in 1998 against Iraq under then President Bill Clinton or the invasion of Panama by Special Forces in 1989. Troops can be committed by the United States to more prominent organizations of which United States is a member, for e.g., NATO and the United Nations. The commonality that was being shared by these actions is that they were all ordered by the president of the United States.

Perhaps, to offer services as the leader of the U.S military is the most earnest role of the president. Congress is only given power by the Constitution to wage war; the executive is appointed by it with executing the war as commander in chief. However, Congress has sanctioned the exercise of power by the armed forces in the history of the United States, but has only officially waged war five times: The War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War and the World War I and II. Throughout the history of United States, all other U.S military action has been under presidential order, carried out by the United States. The president's power, like most other powers, to wage and operate war evolved with time.

From the time when the Korean War held, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution pertains to the president as the "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States". This status entails that the president may freehanded take action in foreign affairs fundamentally, or he, at the very least, may send out troops into combat with no consultation with Congress. But that clause was meant by the framers that once war has been held, as commander-in-chief, it was the President's accountability to lead the war.

It is argued that post-World War II period was turning point in the thought process of nation and the Congress towards the presidential authority for initiating the exercise of force.

Discussion

Evolution of the Presidential Power in United States

A dramatic expansion of the importance and power of presidency has seen in the twentieth century. The relations of twentieth-century presidents with Congress have been both commanding and disastrously weak, like their nineteenth-century vis-à-vis. Some presidents had been strengthened by social crises while some had been weakened or destroyed others. Some presidents were exalted on account of War and Cold War while some were brought to devastated. While some of the modern presidents like Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, and Richard Nixon, only because of suffering abominable overcome and humiliations underwent moments of predominating achievement afterward. Especially Harry Truman has grown to political accomplishment and historical respect from what ...