OLD WARS/NEW WARS: PRESIDENTIAL WAR POWER, by Louis Fisher. NATIONAL SECURITY LAW AND THE POWER OF THE PURSE, by William C. Banks and Peter Raven-Hansen.

Legal scholars have long clamored for a return to what they consider the appropriate balance of war powers between the political branches of government. It is Congress, they have insisted, not the executive, that should control the primary levers in the decision to initiate armed hostilities. With little dissent, the academy has bemoaned marginal congressional participation in a string of conflicts dating to the Vietnam War, condemning presidential assertiveness in almost apocalyptic terms while imploring Congress (and the courts) to fulfill their supposed constitutional mandate. Although these calls were well-received in the media and amplified by individual legislators, they had little effect on the actual war powers process of the post-Vietnam era. Presidents led, Congress followed, and the courts stood idly by. That all appears to have changed. With the end of the Cold War, Congress has become increasingly assertive on the foreign policy stage. The legislative branch may never have reflexively done the President's bidding on national security matters, but today the White House can no longer even indisputably claim to set the general course of the nation's foreign dealings. On defense and security policy, Congress may now call the shots. Whether this will make for good policy remains open to debate. After years of trumpeting the virtues of legislative vigilance, the conventional wisdom will now be put to the test. Some, perhaps, may not have been careful enough about what they wished for, and they may now get it. This brief review first examines the changed context of ...