It is that post that causes people to think the president is powerful… because in that role he is. That role didn’t come to define the presidency until Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. Roosevelt managed to introduce some significant reforms through the New Deal, but it was his response to World War II that brought the commander-in-chief role to the fore.
World War II set the stage for a new type of republic that has endured. It was the republic at war, near war, or preparing for war. From 1941 until today, the primary responsibility of the president has been to prepare to act as commander in chief.
The advent of nuclear weapons made this role central to the presidency. In the event of a nuclear attack, decisions would have to be made that simply did not permit the time needed for the political system to function. The declaration of war became obsolete.
This declaration had never been as respected as the founders may have wanted. The wars against the Native Americans (recognized by treaty as nations) did not involve declarations of war. Countless interventions in the first half of the 20th century, from Haiti to China, had no such declarations.
The use of the declaration of war petered out after Roosevelt, and the constant state of war and near war elevated the role of commander in chief to the prime function of the president. As commander in chief, and without the tool of the declaration of war, the president became enormously powerful—outside the United States.
The great symbol of this power was the passing of the nuclear codes from the outgoing president to the new one—something both symbolic and very real. And the power he derived from the threat of nuclear war was extended to all other aspects of foreign policy.
Congress could intervene by withholding money or blocking an agreement. However, what the founders wanted worked here, too. As difficult as it was to get legislation passed through Congress, it was equally difficult to block presidential initiatives in foreign affairs. And the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled that the president’s actions in foreign affairs was outside its sphere of authority. Congress couldn’t act and the Supreme Court wouldn’t. The president’s power in foreign affairs and matters of war became, after World War II, unchallenged.
Since then, the president has filled two roles. One related to domestic policy, the other as commander in chief. Transfixed as the country was by the Cold War, the president’s major role became the owner of the nuclear arsenal. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States became the only global power in the world. Even as the nuclear threat declined, the role of the president in managing this new reality increased. This was in spite of Congressional attempts, through the War Powers Resolution of 1973, to boost its decision-making abilities regarding foreign interventions.
George H.W. Bush invaded Panama and intervened in Somalia and Kuwait. Bill Clinton intervened in Haiti and went to war in Serbia. And of course following 9/11, when war became what appears to be a permanent feature, the president’s role as commander in chief became central.
The founders always wanted a paradoxical president: weak in domestic politics but not in foreign policy or war. What shifted was not the office… but the world.