Prompt Global Strike and Executive Power
My column this week is on the technological implications of the Obama administration’s excuse for avoiding the WPR:
In the future, however, presidents may resort to airpower in order to avoid congressional limitations on their executive power. A longer-range concern is that as the United States continues to develop technologies that increase the distance between “shooter” and target, such as advanced drones and Prompt Global Strike, power over decisions of military and security policy would shift even more radically away from Congress and toward the executive… In the short term, members of Congress concerned about executive control over war-making powers might be best advised to pay closer attention to procurement decisions. If the president continues to claim the right to use certain weapons of war without Congressional oversight, then Congress is clearly within its powers to deny those weapons to the president, or at least to demand accountability.