1.14 to 1.17

This new American role will be deeply dangerous, to other nations and to our own, not least because American presidents may be tempted to use the role of world's law enforcer as a justification for a new American militarism that has the United States constantly waging or preparing for war. If the United States is going to act unilaterally abroad, it's imperative that in our domestic politics we retain mechanisms for combating presidential overreaching. Since September 11, 2001, the White House has flirted with a dangerous double unilateralism, joining the president's willingness to act without international consent abroad to an effort to bypass Congress and the judiciary at home. In December 2001, without congressional approval, the president announced the withdrawal of the United States from an important missile treaty with Russia. In early 2002, the White House began claiming a presidential power to deem any individual, including an American citizen arrested on American soil, an "enemy combatant" and on that basis to imprison him indefinitely, with no judicial review. Later that year, the president came close to asserting a power to make war on Iraq without express congressional authorization. This double unilateralism, which leaves presidential power altogether unchecked, is a great danger. If we are to be unilateralists abroad, we have a special responsibility—to ourselves and to the world—to maintain and reinvigorate the vital checks and balances of American constitutionalism at home. (From Rubenfeld, Jed, "The Two World Orders," The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn 2003). The original post is at The Wilson Quarterly. )