Nurturing the Imperial Presidency

Wishing to be helpful, Nurturing the Imperial Presidency by Brien Hallett illuminates the 5,000-year-old invariant practice of executive war-making. Why has the nation's war leader always decided and declared war? Substituting a speech act approach for the traditional "e;separation of powers"e; approach, Hallett argues that he who controls the drafting of the declaration of war also controls the decision to go to war. However, recent legislation calling for legislated "e;approvals"e; or "e;authorization to use force"e; before the executive can go to war, in no way hinder the executive's ancient prerogative power to decide and declare war. Innovative ways to deny the executive its ability to decide and declare war are proposed in this book.