Foreign Policy and National Security I

Today, constitutional provisions and institutional stucture.

Wednesday, the "how" and "why" of policy. Read Office of the President, "National Security Strategy of the United States," November 2025, at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

Next week's simulations:

• Multilateralism v. unilateralism
• Taiwan crisis

Congressional war powers (Article I, sec. 8)

• To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
• To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
• To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
• To provide and maintain a Navy;
• To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

Presidential War Power  (Article II, sec. 2)

•  The President shall be 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

Tipping the balance:

• “Frequent war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce [standing armies]. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.” -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 8.
• "If the Union’s existence were constantly menaced, and if its great interests were continually interwoven with those of other powerful nations, one would see the prestige of the executive growing, because of what was expected from it and of what it did."-- Tocqueville, Democracy in America
• Notable deployments -- most without a declaration of war (Edwards,479)
• The Cold War, Korea, and Vietnam
• War Powers Act (Edwards, 480-481)

The Constitution and Diplomacy:

•  "He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls... Article II, sec. 2).
• "[He] shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers" (Article II, sec. 3).

Treaties, Agreements, and Trade

• Rejected treaties.
• Executive agreements
• Trade agreements

Key jobs

Actual powers and duties depend in part on the president.

The roles of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combatant Commands.

Today, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have no executive authority to command combatant forces. The issue of executive authority was clearly resolved by the Goldwater-Nichols DoD Reorganization Act of 1986: "The Secretaries of the Military Departments shall assign all forces under their jurisdiction to unified and specified combatant commands to perform missions assigned to those commands..."; the chain of command "runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense; and from the Secretary of Defense to the commander of the combatant command."