US Presidential War Powers: Legacy Chains in Military Intervention Decisionmaking
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343308094329 |
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
| Author | Christopher Paul |
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
665
© 2008 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 45, no. 5, 2008, pp. 665–679
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi
and Singapore) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343308094329
US Presidential War Powers: Legacy Chains in
Military Intervention Decisionmaking*
CHRISTOPHER PAUL
RAND Corporation
Using the events leading to the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and its subsequent impact on US mili -
tary interventions as an empirical example, this article elaborates the notion of ‘legacy chains’.
Expanding on the general notion of policy legacies, the discussion describes the effects that post-World
War II US military interventions have had on each other through the policy legacies left by each in turn.
The argument allows that military intervention legacies have their strongest impact on decisionmaking
for an immediately subsequent intervention but can also leave durable impressions on the institutional
context, which, after being modified by subsequent military interventions, constitute ‘legacy chains’.
These legacy chains are path-dependent processes, in that their institutional embodiments follow
‘increasing returns’ logics and will remain in place until the structure of returns changes, usually due to
a ‘critical shift’. In response to a series of perceived abuses of presidential war powers following World
War II, the War Powers Resolution sought to ensure congressional participation in future commitments
of US forces to hostilities. It has not done so. The lasting legacy of the War Powers Resolution is an
unintended consequence of the way it was formally institutionalized. Presidents, following the letter of
the resolution, have designed post-War Powers Resolution military interventions to either be short (so
the 60-day mandatory reporting period specified in the resolution ends with a fait accompli) or popular,
so that public and congressional opinion are sufficient to ensure approval of the operation, either before
it starts or once underway. While the actual legacy of the War Powers Resolution is not what was
intended at its inception, it is unlikely to be formally changed until a future (hypothetical) abuse of war
powers sufficiently egregious to break through its institutional inertia.
*The views expressed here are those solely of the author
and do not reflect the views or opinions of RAND or its
sponsors. Direct all correspondence to the author at
cpaul@rand.org. Thanks to Michael Mann, Bill Roy, Bill
Domhoff, Louis Fisher, Maria Falvo, and several anonym -
ous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts
of this article.
Introduction
There’s an obvious kernel of truth to the old
saying, ‘Generals always fight the last war’.
This article explores one of the sources of this
kind of policy inertia, ‘legacy chains’, by
examining the sequence of disputes over mil-
itary deployments that led up to the United
States War Powers Resolution of 1973 and its
impact on the US military interventions that
have followed. The War Powers Resolution
was passed by a Congress attempting to re -
store balance to war-making powers constitu-
tionally divided between the Congress (as the
only body legally allowed to make a ‘declara-
tion of war’) and the president (the ‘com-
mander in chief’). This article traces the war
powers legacy chain through the US mili tary
operations in Korea, Vietnam, the Dominican
Republic, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Haiti, and
Iraq again. The exercise of war powers (and
the disputes associated with them) for these
military operations show how legacies are
formed and institutionalized within a policy
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