War Powers
201 Articles
National Security Politics in the 114th Congress
Last September, I wrote a post exploring whether some of the congressional reactions to the Snowden disclosures might have been portents of a coming political realignment on national…
One More Thing on Goldsmith & Waxman
There is not much to add to my colleague Shalev Roisman’s response to Jack Goldsmith and Matthew Waxman’s essay in The New Republic arguing that it is President Obama, and…
Rejecting the Bush Comparison: A Response to Goldsmith & Waxman
Jack Goldsmith and Matthew Waxman have written an interesting essay on President Obama’s war powers legacy, boldly titled “Obama, not Bush, is the Master of Unilateral War.”…
Security Agreement With Afghanistan Raises Key Questions About How and When War Ends
Today, the United States and Afghanistan signed a long-awaited bilateral security agreement. The U.S. government promised to withdraw combat troops by December, and to leave nearly…
Unwilling or Unable: A Roundup of Just Security’s Debate on the Legality of Airstrikes Inside Syria
While it was only last night that the United States and five Arab nations began air strikes against ISIL and the al-Qaeda-linked Khorasan group inside Syria, Just Security has…
The War Powers Resolution and Article 51 Letters Concerning Use of Force in Syria Against ISIL and the Khorasan Group [UPDATED to add statement of the U.N. Secretary-General]
Here is the President’s War Powers Resolution letter sent to Congress today with notification of the use of force in Syria against ISIL. And here is the corresponding letter…
Hagel and Dempsey Won’t Rule Out Possibility of U.S. Ground Combat Troops in Iraq
On Sept. 16, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey testified before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on the Pentagon’s…
The Bells of September
This September 11th, I traveled with my little boy down the tree-lined beauty of Savannah to Reynolds Square where, amidst the draped Spanish Moss, historic Christ Church rang…
Tentative first reactions to the 2001 AUMF theory [updated]
As I understand it, the Administration’s legal theory, as articulated by a senior official last evening, is something like the following: In 2004, ISIL (then known as al…