National Security - Of Highest Concern, Responsibility, Presidential Power, National Security During War, A Need For Balance

National Security - Of Highest Concern

National Security - Responsibility

The U.S. Constitution divides responsibility for national security among the three branches of federal government. This system, known as the separation of powers, reflects the intent of the Constitution's framers that no single branch become too powerful. Thus each branch oversees the other through checks and balances with specific powers being neatly drawn. The president makes foreign policy thro…

National Security - Presidential Power

Over the next 80 years, lawmakers and presidents jostled over national security. Immediately following the Civil War, Congress reasserted itself by refusing to ratify treaties. World War I saw President Woodrow Wilson claim broad presidential powers to regulate food and fuel prices, which, though highly controversial, became law in 1917. Wilson's agenda during the crisis also led Congress to prohi…

National Security - National Security During War

As before, the executive branch also sacrificed civil liberties to the war effort. In February of 1942, an official War Department memo expressed alarm that "112,000 potential enemies of Japanese extraction are at large today," and reasoned that the absence of any sabotage to date "is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." Within two months, the Roosevelt administr…

National Security - A Need For Balance

Lawmakers frustrated with presidential war-making passed the War Powers Act of 1973. An attempt to enforce the Constitution's balance of power, the law curtails the president's ability to send troops into foreign areas in the absence of a declaration of war. It requires presidents to report to Congress first, and, within 60 days of deployment, to begin a troop recall that lasts no longer than thir…

National Security - Further Readings