The Road to War: Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed

Inside Flap

Not since Pearl Harbor in 1941 has an American president gone to Congress to request a declaration of war. Nevertheless, since then, one president after another, from Truman to Obama, has ordered American troops into wars all over the world. Why no declarations of war? Why has it become so comparatively easy for a president to commit the nation to war? What is Congress’s responsibility? Where is the press? In The Road to War, esteemed journalist and author Marvin Kalb explores these crucial and timely questions. Rather than formally declaring war, presidents have justified their war-making powers by citing predecessors’ “commitments,” private and public. Many have been honored, but some have been betrayed. From Vietnam to Israel, presidential commitments have proven to be tricky and dangerous . For example, presidents pledged the United States to the defense of South Vietnam; yet none saw the need for a formal declaration of war, and few in Congress or the media chose to question the war’s provenance or legitimacy until it was too late. In the end, the U.S. lost 58,000 Americans—and the war. Given the extraordinarily close U.S.-Israeli relationship , based on secret presidential assurances, it is remarkable but true that a number of Israeli leaders feel that at times they have been betrayed by American presidents. Kalb, while explaining the origin of this sense of betrayal, raises a profoundly important question: Isn’t it time for the United States and Israel to negotiate a mutual defense treaty? Wouldn’t such a treaty help facilitate an (continued on back flap) Israeli-Palestinian agreement and provide American reassurance for Israel in the nuclear standoff with Iran? The word of a president can morph into a national commitment, the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. Therefore, whenever a president “commits” the United States to a policy or course of action, with or increasingly without congressional approval or national debate, it is time to raise the yellow flag—watch out! MARVIN KALB is the Edward R. Murrow Professor (Emeritus) at Harvard and guest scholar in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. His distinguished journalism career covers thirty years of award-winning reporting and commentary for CBS and NBC, including a stint as the host of Meet the Press. His most recent book is Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama (Brookings, 2011), written with Deborah Kalb. Cover photograph: © REUTERS/Baz Ratner Jacket by Sese-Paul Design THE ROAD TO WAR ...