CIAO DATE: 07/2012
April 2012
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
James Madison famously stated in 1793: “War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.” By this, Madison meant that, when confronted with a grave threat to national security, the instinct of a state is to concentrate power at the very top. This can lead – and has led – to abuse of power. For instance, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 resulted in the forcible internment of Japanese Americans (two thirds of whom were U.S. citizens), an episode widely seen as regrettable later, after history had removed Americans from the anxiety of war. But by no means do we have to look as far back as to World War II. We can note Cold War incidents such as the Iran-Contra scandal (1985–87), when the Reagan administration took it upon itself to bypass Congress – and specific laws – in order to support the controversial Nicaraguan Contras with money acquired by selling arms to Iran. Indeed, not only the executive branch, but also the US Congress has – especially since World War II – tended to react to threats to national security by granting broad powers to the Chief Executive. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by Congress in 1964 as a result of biased intelligence given to Congress by the executive branch, gave President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority he had sought to conduct an all-out war in South East Asia (Prados 2004). The joint resolution came about because Congress had been led to believe that US warships had been attacked without cause by North Vietnam in August 1964 – a “fact” later proven incorrect (ibid.).
Resource link: The War on Terror from Bush to Obama: On Power and Path Dependency [PDF] - 1.5M