Congress has approved legislation that would prevent any president from withdrawing the United States from NATO without approval from the Senate or an Act of Congress. The measure, spearheaded by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), was included in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which passed out of the House on Thursday and is expected to be signed by President Biden.
I’m actually extremely worried about this constitutional overreach. Under many sane readings of the constitution, this isn’t a power congress has. The president has a few unilateral powers in order to check the mob rules (or rather the external capture of congress.)
Ideally a president should be able to unilaterally dissolve all alliances and other undue foreign influence on our legislature. Otherwise there is no way to recover form this sham of democracy.
Under many sane readings of the constitution, this isn’t a power congress has.
The constitution only explicitly articulates the process for establishing treaties, not ending them. So it’s a bit of a gray area as to whether the president can end them by himself, since he can’t establish them by himself.
To my mind, it would seem exceedingly weird if establishing a treaty required the consent of the Senate but breaking one didn’t. What’s the argument to be made that the two aspects (establish/break) are so fundamentally different that the rules for the first aren’t also the rules for the second? Why does the president need consent to say yes but does not need consent to say no?
It’s definitely been done before, but also never directly contested. (In previous cases SCOTUS has avoided answering the question by saying they didn’t have jurisdiction.)
I don’t want to argue the specifics of breaking/establishing a general treaty (though i’m sure that is an amazingly interesting analysis). But I do want to discuss at a naive level the results of a US president refusing to enforce NATO. Without being overly factual, I understand NATO to be a mutual defense treaty ratified and renegotiated from the post-ww2 era til now. It was created by the US and former Allied Forces except Russia, to contain perceived Russian/Communist aggression.
From the genesis of this treaty( 1948), the US was understood to be the “enforcer” of it. Sure other nations would support the US and generally contribute to Article5, but in-practice and dollars, the US legitimized NATO.
So if a modern US president decided to publicly announce that he would no-longer respect NATO without additional justifications, how can the Senate enforce NATO without the US President and thus the Armed Forces support?
This deterrent effect doesn’t come just from the NATO treaty … Deterrence comes from the Kremlin’s conviction that Americans really believe in collective defense, that the U.S. military really is prepared for collective defense, and that the U.S. president really is committed to act if collective security is challenged. Trump could end that conviction with a single speech, a single comment, even a single Truth Social post, and it won’t matter if Congress, the media, and the Republican Party are still arguing about the legality of withdrawing from NATO. Once the commander in chief says “I will not come to an ally’s aid if attacked,” why would anyone fear NATO, regardless of what obligations still exist on paper? … When I asked several people with deep links to NATO to imagine what would happen to Europe, to Ukraine, and even to Taiwan and South Korea if Trump declared his refusal to observe Article 5, all of them agreed that faith in collective defense could evaporate quickly. Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a former deputy secretary-general of NATO, pointed out that Trump could pull the American ambassador from his post, prevent diplomats from attending meetings, or stop contributing to the cost of the Brussels headquarters, all before Congress was able to block him: “He wouldn’t be in any way legally constrained from doing that.” Closing American bases in Europe and transferring thousands of soldiers would take longer, of course, but all of the political bodies in the alliance would nevertheless have to change the way they operate overnight. James Goldgeier, an international-relations professor at American University and the author of several books on NATO, thinks the result would be chaotic. “It’s not like you can say, ‘Okay, now we have another plan for how to deal with this,’ ” he told me. There is no alternative leadership available, no alternative source of command-and-control systems, no alternative space weapons, not even an alternative supply of ammunition. Europe would immediately be exposed to a possible Russian attack for which it is not prepared, and for which it would not be prepared for many years.
e to an ally’s aid if attacked,” why would anyone fear NATO, regardless of what obligations still exist on paper? … When I asked several people with deep links to NATO to imagine what would happen
So should the president be commander-in-chief or not? Normally liberals aren’t quite so mask-off and in favor of a military junta, but please, tell me how you square this circle.
Normally liberals aren’t quite so mask-off … please, tell me how you square this circle.
Sorry, not American, so I found your question confusing.
From the article above:
The measure, spearheaded by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.),
Both parties seem to be in favour of limiting the power of the president to withdraw from NATO.
This doesn’t seem to be a simple partisan issue, as this legislation has bipartisan support.
If you are viewing actions of the legislature strictly through a partisan lens, you dont’ have enough background to approach the original concern at all.
The original idea of the US government is three branches of government. If one branch of government “bipartisananly” wants to limit another branch of government, that should be cause for alarm and ideally the congressmen involved should be censured and possibly impeached. If you want to change the powers of the president, then it’s time to rewrite the constitution, not do whatever the fuck this is.
No, you are missing the entire point of three branches of government. They are there as a check and balance of power to the others. They are literally supposed to stop the other branches from overstepping.
It’s been established that the president is in charge of foreign treaties. So it is congress that is overstepping here.
Article II section 2 of the constitution requires approval from the senate to ratify treaties, which is then up to the president to ratify and implement. Both branches of the government are supposed to work together to establish foreign policies, this is part of the check and balances. If you have sources interpreting article II section 2 differently I’d be curious to see.
NATO is a mutual defense treaty that is in practice enforced by US armed forces. If you accept that the President is Commander-in-chief of the armed forces, if He chooses not to respect the terms of the treaty by not deploying the armed forces, then in what way does congress get a say without grossly violating the separation of powers?
That’s nice. Anyway, death to NATO
So who do you like?
the warsaw pact
Removed by mod
Doing something completely and plainly undemocratic to preserve “democracy” certified classic. I’m sure there’s still some way to get out still, but, NATO forever no looking back I guess. The completely real and not totally contrived “north atlantic community” me and my closest friends across half the world.
How is this undemocratic? It was voted on and passed by Congress. Congress is made up of elected representatives by the citizens of the US.
Removed by mod
Are you confusing what is democratic with what is supporting democracy? Democracy is just a system of government. A democratic country can nuke another democratic country and still be democratic. We could say they are not supporting democracy in other countries, but that’s not what anyone is talking about here.
