Shoon Murray

The convergence of American elites’ domestic beliefs with their foreign policy beliefs

Contemporary scholarship on elites’ foreign policy beliefs is based upon the implicit assumption that the dimensions underpinning these attitudes are separate and distinct from those which undergird attitudes about domestic politics. Indeed, the dominant conception of Americans’ foreign policy beliefs uses labels to describe dimensions—militant internationalism and cooperative internationalism—which are relevant to international affairs but meaningless to domestic policy attitudes and disputes. Such accounts imply that people do not possess common principles, or ideology, that structure beliefs across both issue domains. We argue that the analytical barrier between foreign and domestic policy beliefs is artificial, at least for elite beliefs. Data from the 1988 Foreign Policy Leadership Project survey and the 1988–1992 Leadership Opinion Project panel study demonstrate that foreign and domestic policy beliefs share a common structure. Since this structure is strongly associated with simple self‐placement ...

The Case for Repeal and the Forces Favoring the Status Quo

This concluding chapter makes three major points. First, the 2001 AUMF will have met its intended purpose once the United States ends its combat role in Afghanistan and the core al Qaeda leaders are either dead or captured. Second, powerful obstacles stand in the way of the AUMF’s rightful repeal: organizational interests, irrational yet common reactions to risk, other psychological tendencies, and built-in political incentives. Finally, it is important to fight against these sources of inertia; not doing so will have real costs.

The Bush Administration’s Overreach: Some Pushback, but a Lasting Imprint

This chapter documents the Bush administration’s reaction to 9/11 as it put the United States on war footing and how White House officials relied upon the 2001 AUMF to justify their actions. The administration acted quickly and audaciously and unilaterally to counter what it saw as an existential threat to the United States. Four categories of wartime activities pursued against al Qaeda and the Taliban are examined: (1) tracking and surveillance; (2) targeted killing and rendition; (3) detention and trials; and (4) interrogation methods. Some policies exceeded domestic and international legal limits, provoking political pushback to restore a legal foundation. Nonetheless, many features of Bush’s counterterrorism regime left a deep imprint.

The Passage of the 2001 AUMF in Historical Context

This chapter briefly outlines the long historical struggle between the president and the Congress over which branch decides when military action is initiated. The 2001 AUMF is a piece in this larger puzzle. The chapter then recounts the actions by the president, the vice president, the White House and Justice Department lawyers, and lawmakers in the days and weeks after 9/11 as they passed the 2001 AUMF into law and then interpreted it publicly and privately.

Obama and the Armed Conflict with Al Qaeda and Its Associates

The chapter begins with an overview of adjustments the Obama administration made to the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies. It then details the Obama administration’s approach to the detainees kept at Guantanamo and the treatment of new captures; describes the expansion of lethal targeting, both in the number of strikes and in the targeting of new groups; and points to the declining credibility, as seen from abroad, of the United States’ “war” frame. By accepting the foundational premise that the United States is at “war” with al Qaeda and its associates wherever they may operate, based on the 2001 AUMF, the Obama administration stayed on a path that eventually led to criticism for undue executive power and breaking international norms. In Obama’s second term, he broached the idea of repealing or narrowing the AUMF.

The AUMF Takes on “A Life of Its Own”

Congress authorized the “war” against al Qaeda in a rushed response to the September 11th terrorist attacks. Te statute is known as the 2001 AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force) and it was meant to be a temporary grant of powers to allow the president to fight the perpetrators of the attack. This chapter will introduce the idea that the 2001 AUMF has taken on a “life of its own” and could continue to do so unless harnessed by the Congress. A counterterrorism policy framed as “war,” with all the powers that accrue to the executive branch, could become the “new normal.” The chapter introduces (1) how two administrations used the statute, raising the question of whether it is the “new normal”; (2) how the statute is now out of sync with international political realities; and (3) the plan for the rest of the book.