![]() If Biden fixes this, future generations will owe him a great debt. president with this authority - ended decades ago? The obvious answer: It doesn’t make sense. (Perhaps Donald Trump!) How can it possibly make sense to give one single individual the power to plunge the planet into nuclear Armageddon, when the Cold War - the rationale for investing the U.S. As will Biden’s successor, whoever she or he may be. As the Trump administration descended into a chaotic attempt to overturn Biden’s win, a long-ignored question made its appearance on the public policy agenda: You mean that guy has the authority to order a nuclear attack whenever the spirit moves him? Answer: Indeed. ![]() Reexamine the allocation of nuclear release authority. But let us at least learn something in return for the more than $6 trillion that we have wasted in our forever wars. ![]() They won’t flinch from the truth, which is quite likely to be ugly. Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to lead the investigation. Biden should create a 9/11-style commission to provide an authoritative answer. How did this happen? Given oft-repeated claims that ours is the best military in all recorded history, the American people deserve an answer to that question. forces accomplished their assigned mission to create stable democracies. In neither Iraq nor Afghanistan have U.S. To put it another way, he should demand that the senators and representatives fulfill their constitutional responsibility.Ĭommission a panel to study the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Biden should insist on specific prior approval from Congress for any further use of force, other than in response to direct attack on the United States. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) casting the sole dissenting vote, the AUMF has been cited on 41 occasions as justification for attacking 19 countries. No more wars undertaken pursuant to hopes and dreams that coercive regime change will result in the emergence of stable democracies.ĭeclare Congress’ 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force inoperative. Instead of favoring preemptive attacks on our adversaries, a Biden doctrine could declare that the United States could henceforth employ force only in self-defense. national security policy.Ībrogate the Bush doctrine of preventive war. With a few strokes of the presidential pen, Biden could initiate a badly needed overhaul of basic U.S. There are plenty of commander in chief issues crying out for timely executive action. He is acting with considerable vigor to implement an ambitious agenda, except when it comes to basic military posture and policy.Īnd it’s not for want of matters requiring urgent attention. Yet Biden seems reluctant to exercise that authority. Presidential authority is greatest when the occupant of the Oval Office dons the garb of U.S. ![]() And forgive me for suggesting that this particular action has less to do with expanding the pool of potential military recruits than with scoring points in the latest rounds of the culture war. Biden ordered that President Trump’s prohibition on transgender people serving in the armed services be lifted. Given our nation’s propensity for using force (of late, not very successfully), for marketing massive quantities of arms abroad (often to unsavory regimes), for maintaining a globe-spanning conglomeration of foreign bases (some dating from World War II), and for spending way more on our military than on anyone else on the planet, it is passing strange that the new commander in chief’s passel of executive commands and hopes has had nothing to say about military matters. Yet one subject is missing from these various initiatives: war. Thus far in Joe Biden’s young presidency, he has issued a blizzard of executive orders and memos - on the climate crisis “here and abroad,” on “Ensuring the Future is Made in All of America by All of America’s Workers,” on immigration, COVID-19 vaccination, the minimum wage and more. ![]()
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