Lawfare Archive: Waxman and Ramsey on Delegating War Power

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From January 22, 2024: There is much debate among academics and policy experts over the power the Constitution affords to the president and Congress to initiate military conflicts. But as Michael Ramsey and Matthew Waxman, law professors at the University of San Diego and Columbia, respectively, point out in a recent law review article , this focus misses the mark. In fact, the most salient constitutional war powers question—in our current era dominated by authorizations for the use of military force—is not whether the president has the unilateral authority to start large-scale conflicts. Rather, it is the scope of Congress’s authority to delegate its war-initiation power to the president.…