"Going to War: Who Decides?" By Patricia Smith, Upfront Magazine

The article, "Going to War: Who Decides?" by Patricia Smith discusses the the debate over who has the authority to send American troops into battle in Syria. President Obama made the decision to give congress the responsibility to indicate whether or not we should go to war with Syria.  This surprised many, but it has been an issue in the past.  Who gets control of the army? Did Obama make the right decision?

The question arose when the Syrian government used sarin gas to harm and kill many of it's citizens in a Damascus suburb.  President Obama was put on the spot to lead the nation in what our position should be on the matter.  When President Obama gave up the decision, controversy arose at whether this helped or harmed the nation. The Declaration of war has been a sensitive topic for the US on previous years. As the article states, "Congress has formally declared war only five times... From Washington forward, presidents have engaged in military activities without declarations or authorizations,"This informs the reader that anything to do with "The formal declaration of war," is going to cause an argument, and make people choose sides.

I believe that to other countries, President Obama made the US as a nation seem indecisive and weak.  I think that the power to control the military should be handled by both the executive and legislative branches of government- as the Constitution states, not just the legislative branch. In other words, we need to find a balance of power. I believe this because our country is based off of the morals of freedom and free speech, and we do not want a dictatorship, where war can be declared unilaterally, but our nation does needs a bold leader who can work effectively under pressured conditions.

What other countries may think of as indecisive and weak, I believe is the strength of the US government setup.  As the article states, the framers of the constitution devised a system of checks and balances to keep one branch of government from overpowering the other. So while the president is the Commander in chief of the army and navy, Congress has the power to declare war.  In this way, power is balanced between branches of government. By handing all of his responsibility over to congress, President Obama was not maintaining this balance.  Matthew Spalding states "Presidents are supposed to protect their authority. They naturally want not to defer to congress, especially on national security."

Overall, I think that we as Americans need to find a balance between what the president's job is, and what congress' job is.  If we find that balance, we will be able to make decisions much more efficiently and easily.