The United States Congress and nuclear war powers: explaining legislative nonfeasance

ABSTRACT

Scholarly debate over the role of the United States Congress in approving military action has focused on the respective war powers granted the executive and legislature by the United States Constitution. Although a voluminous literature has examined the institutional and partisan politics shaping their exercise, a conspicuous lacuna concerns nuclear war powers. Despite periodic but mostly ineffective reassertions of congressional prerogatives over war, the decision to employ nuclear weapons has been left entirely to presidential discretion since 1945. Explaining this consistent refusal by Congress to rein in the ultimate presidential power and exercise co-responsibility for the most devastating form of war relies less on disputatious constitutional grounds than on three arguments about congressional dysfunctionality, legislative irresponsibility, and the relative costs of collective action by federal lawmakers on perilous national security questions.

KEYWORDS:

• Congress
• US Constitution
• nuclear war
• war powers
• no first-use

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Thomas Donnelly, Colin Dueck, Robert Lieber, Michael Mandelbaum, Michael O’Neal, and Gary Schmitt for their comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Robert S. Singh is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London. His research interests encompass contemporary US politics and the politics of American foreign policy.