War Powers Resolution After 34 Years and the Continuing Political Debate

Two separate but closely related issues confront Congress each time the President introduces armed forces into a situation abroad that conceivably could lead to their involvement in hostilities. One issue concerns the division of war powers between the President and Congress, whether the use of armed forces falls within the purview of the congressional power to declare war and the War Powers Resolution (WPR). The other issue is whether or not Congress concurs in the wisdom of the action. This book does not deal with the substantive merits of using armed forces in specific cases, but rather with congressional authorisation for military action, and the application and effectiveness of the WPR, as well as its application since enactment, providing detailed background on a variety of cases where it was utilised, or issues when its applicability were raised. In the post-Cold War world, Presidents have continued to commit U.S. Armed Forces into potential hostilities, sometimes without a specific authorisation from Congress. Thus the War Powers Resolution and its purposes continues to be a potential subject of controversy. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.