Article 2, Section 2, US Constitution
(Im in government class right now, had to have seen it coming)
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States"
Subsequent explanation:
The President is the military's commander-in-chief; however
Article One gives Congress and not the President the authority to
declare war. Presidents have often deployed troops with Congressional authorization, but without an explicit declaration of war. According to historian
Thomas Woods, "Ever since the
Korean War, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution — which refers to the president as the 'Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States' — has been interpreted to mean that the president may act with an essentially free hand in foreign affairs, or at the very least that he may send men into battle without consulting Congress." Since
World War II, every major military action has been technically a U.S. military operation or a U.N. "
police action", which are deemed legally legitimate by Congress, and various
United Nations Resolutions because of decisions such as the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution,
Authorization for Use of Force. This is also true in the case of the
Korean War, which was only retroactively deemed a war—50 years to the day, after the fact—by a ceremonial Act of Congress. This clause is included because it gives the President power over the troops, and under one commander, the military is bound to be more organized and efficient.
