Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems. By Howlett Michael and Ramesh M.. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1995. 239p. $28.00.

that model and lodged in Congress the lion's share of foreign policy powers, including the power of war and peace. The "original intent" of the Constitution on this issue could hardly be clearer. The power "to declare war," as the convention debates and the early practice established, meant that all wars, large or small, declared or undeclared, had to be authorized by Congress. From the framers' perspective, the executive should not be permitted to initiate military hostilities against a foreign nation since one person could not be trusted with such awesome authority. The framers, then, embraced the theory of collective decision making, not only in domestic affairs but also in foreign affairs, a scheme that is readily apparent in the Constitution's assignment of senior status to Congress in a partnership with the president for the purpose of conducting U.S. foreign policy. Until 1950, no president had claimed the constitutional authority to take the nation into war without prior congressional authorization. But President Harry Truman's assertion of that power, discussed in chapter 4, ushered in an era of presidential usurpation of the war power, a pattern that has been repeated, most recently, by Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and William Clinton. As Fisher demonstrates, however, this claim finds no support in the records of the Constitution, the debates in the state ratifying conventions, the pages of the Federalist Papers, or in judicial decisions. In short, there is no support for unilateral presidential war making in our constitutional architecture. Fisher's examination of the principal legal arguments adduced by defenders of presidential war making is balanced, to be sure, but it pulls no punches. The commander-in-chief clause, often invoked by presidents, confers no war-making authority upon the president; indeed, such a reading would eviscerate the constitutional grant to Congress of exclusive authority to decide for war. Presidents and their defenders have advanced the contention that circumstances in the realm of international relations require speed and dispatch, requirements which preclude response by a lumbering body such as Congress and are conducive to the efficiency and unity of the executive. Fisher rightly rejects that argument: "Few uses of unilateral force by the president can be explained by genuine emergencies. Contrived emergencies, perhaps, but not real ones. In the period since World War II, only one situation justified presidential action in the absence of congressional authority: President Ford's evacuation of Americans and foreign nationals from Vietnam" (p. 186). For Fisher, if presidents believe that an emergency requires force before approval can be obtained from Congress, then it is far better for them to act and later seek retroactive authorization from Congress on the basis of an explanation of what they did and why they acted. Lincoln rightly followed that procedure in the Civil War because, as Fisher notes, "Congress is the only branch that can confer legitimacy on an emergency measure" (p. 187). Presidents Truman, Bush, and Clinton have variously invoked national defense treaties and UN Security Council resolutions as legal justification for military initiatives. But Fisher justly rejects these claims: "Treaties entered into by the President and Senate—whether for NATO or the UN Charter—cannot strip from the House of Representatives its constitutional duties over military commitments" (p. 189).