The Imperial Presidency, Drift and The Infinity War

As I think of friends in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan and others who are no longer with us, I occasionally come across articles and/or books that resonate with personal observations.

Spending last year at the Army War College, was able to think about the nature and character of war, and reflect from time to time on that nature/character question relative to Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria and our involvement. A recent article in the WaPo (free online subscription for us military types!) wrote about our "Infinity War".

And that reminded me of another War College experience, reading Rachel Maddow's "Drift", and then our reading group (and spouses!) getting to meet and talk with her in NYC. For someone not in the military and for whom the military is not a primary focus, she did an extraordinary job of articulating some concerns about the political-military-industrial complex and how the military activity (and military spending) has somehow become separate from the rest of society (the recent WaPo series of articles they are calling "the Afghanistan Papers" is perhaps a counterpoint).  She also showed a tremendous amount of respect to our War College group, having prepared for our meeting by learning a bit about each of us before we met. She admitted it can be a bit intimidating meeting with military officers given that she took on writing on the military despite not having a deep military background, so that preparation was not just respect but her wanting to be prepared from a sense of showing she does her homework.

She and others have pointed things out such as the frequent use of the military without going through steps designed Constitutionally to limit the use of the military- like declaring war (last time? 1942). Now, we have "authorized use of military force," but even that is open to debate about what exactly that authorizes- conditions, terms, magnitude, purpose, etc.

The use of the military is tied in some respects to the desired application of military power by the Commander in Chief, and both the left and the right have accused sitting presidents of abusing that power (including current impeachment proceedings). As I studied the problem over the past year at War College, I came to see the increasing power of the President not just as a power grab by the executive branch, but also as a function of a Congress that has been willing to cede power. That willingness in my estimation is partly inadvertent or unconscious, other times is has been cowardice or cold political calculation that the President, not Congress, would bear the burden for things going wrong. But it is by no means a new phenomenon, and I recommend the following to those who argue that Congress is too powerful as it fights back against the powers of the executive branch- Paul Starobin's article back in 2006 and Schlesinger's "The Imperial Presidency" from 1973.