Recommended Reading List

This list of recommended reading regarding the relative war powers of the three federal branches was prepared courtesy of Benson Scotch. Additional recommended reading materials will be added soon relating to the roles of the states, the American people, and Americans in uniform. Scotch wishes readers to know that listing does not suggest an endorsement of any particular point of view within the list. The goal is to present a broad spectrum of views about war powers and related issues.

Who Decides About War? has more than one level of meaning, and it’s the multiple perspectives that promise an interesting conference.

From the academic perspective, Who Decides About War? centers on the relationship, and sometimes the conflict, between the powers of Congress under Article I of the Constitution, among others “To raise and support armies, . . . To provide and maintain a navy; . . . [and] To declare War . . .” and the powers of the President under Article II as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; . . .”

Two comprehensive and magisterial Harvard Law Review Articles by Profs. David Barron and Martin Lederman cover the constitutional and statutory dimensions of Who Decides About War? – and much more. The pieces are long, but accessible to both legal scholars and lay people. They may be found at:

http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/jan08/barron_lederman.shtml
and
http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/feb08/barron_lederman2.shtml

As the Barron & Lederman articles relate, Congress in 1973 passed (over President Nixon’s veto) the War Powers Resolution –sometimes (correctly) called the War Powers Act. For an excellent and relatively brief summary and history of the WPA, we can recommend the Wikipedia entry (Wikipedia.org) at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution

There are at least two schools of thought about reforming and modernizing the WPA, the first best exemplified in a 2005 study by the Constitution Project of our host Georgetown University Law Center, “Deciding to Use Force Abroad: War Powers in a System of Checks and Balances.” It may be found at:

http://www.constitutionproject.org/manage/file/28.pdf

The Constitution Project study stands in contrast to the 2008 study by the War Powers Commission co-directed by former Secretaries of State James Baker and Warren Christopher.

http://loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/pdf/baker.christopher.pdf

Secretaries Baker and Christopher presented their version of the future of war powers in a July 2008 op-ed in the New York Times, found at

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/opinion/08baker.html

For some different views on Baker-Christopher, see an analysis by Louis Fisher of the Library of Congress at:

http://loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/pdf/baker.christopher.pdf

But the academic views–-though the foundation of any debate on the topic--is only one level of Who Decides About War? There is a limitless amount of literature about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and while the conference should not be a debate about the merits or demerits of these wars, it is impossible to ask Who Decides About War? without examining the decision-making matrix of government, the press, politics, and history without reference to some pieces about these conflicts.

We recommend (there would have been a few hundred equally good examples) a recent piece by Richard Haass in the New York Times at

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/opinion/21haass.html?_r=1&scp=30&sq=Afghanistan&st=cse

Do we decide about war in terms of our national interest? If so, do we distinguish meaningfully between “wars of necessity” and “wars of choice” as Mr. Haass suggests.

How war powers decisions are reached in the swirl of strong opinions about the two current wars, see, on the one hand:

“How Obama Took Over the Peace Movement” by John Stauber,

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8297

For the viewpoint about which Mr. Stauber expresses concern, see the generally liberal Center for American Democracy’s take on Afghanistan at:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sustainable_Security_in_Afghanistan

See also the Cato Institute’s piece by Benjamin H. Friedman, “Don't 'Pull an Iraq' in Afghanistan” at:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9314

It is safe to say that the views of the Center for American Progress and the Cato Institute are not running high in the public opinion polls right now—hence their inclusion in this reading list as “hard to find” items.

Again, this Conference would ask: Who Decides About War? to which we must add, By What Criteria? To what degree should policy-makers (and history) judge a particular decision to use military force by the outcome of the venture?

Should Congress—surrogates for the American public—have a voice equal to that of the Commander-in-Chief at the time the Authorization for Use of Military Force is considered, or should Congress speak sotto voce until the course of a conflict becomes clear on the field of battle or the battles of the pollsters?

We hope that our reading suggestions (No, it’s not even possible to read everything on this list.) will raise these and many other aspects of Who Decides About War? both in your minds and at the Conference, both as a matter of law and a matter of the underlying core values in our society.