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Publication Date
10-2026
Description
Many believe that the power to start wars is the most important issue of constitutional war powers-and perhaps the most important issue of constitutional law altogether. Yet this fixation on the power to start wars obscures equally important questions. Who has the power to prepare for war, deter it, conduct it, decide its aims, or end it? Although many democracies wrestle with these constitutional questions, the United States stands apart in that no other written constitution has had to function over time across such dramatic transformations in national military power and radical swings in strategy for wielding it. To show the many ways that political leaders have adapted law-in war, in peace, and in the gray zones between-this book weaves together the stories of American constitutional war powers, military history, and grand strategy from the Revolutionary War to possible conflicts of the future.
Disciplines
Administrative Law | Constitutional Law | International Relations | Law | National Security Law
ISBN
9781009869874
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
City
New York, NY
Reviews
"Waxman has made the most significant contribution to the study of war powers in a generation. A fascinating chronicle grounded in history, law, and politics, Constitutional War Powers is a must-read for anyone who cares about the critical stakes involved in whether and how the United States wages war."
—Amanda L. Tyler, Clark Professor of Constitutional Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law
"This important book shifts constitutional war-powers scholarship away from its narrow focus on initiating war toward neglected — and in many ways more consequential — questions of which branch can mobilize forces, deter adversaries, conduct hostilities, define war aims, and end conflicts. Waxman’s deeply researched work reframes conventional views of war-related powers."
—Jack L. Goldsmith, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
"There are many books about war powers, very few of them important. Waxman has written a genuinely important one-perhaps the first comprehensive account of the struggles in American law over the power to plan for, threaten, initiate, wage, and end wars."
—Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Waxman, Matthew C., "Constitutional War Powers: Law & Strategy from the Revolution to Cyberconflict" (2026). Faculty Books. 412.
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/412
Included in
Administrative Law Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, International Relations Commons, National Security Law Commons