SRS on American Foreign Policy Chapter 11.
Dating back over 50 years ago, president-Congress relationships have always been strained over the power to declare war. In 1943 Congress declared its resolution to end isolationism and adopt collective security as the postwar foreign policy of the United States. Yet with the end of World War II, the containment of Russia and its allies became the concentration of the executive branch planners. This new focus meant congressional consent would be needed to formulate and become part of entangling peacetime alliances.
The Vietnam War was the breaking point of the relationship between Congress and the President, and the development of the War Powers Resolution. Although it became the focus of conflict between the two braches during the Grenada intervention in 1983, Congress no longer insisted on the implementation of the War Powers Resolution, but it insisted on voting for or against a war resolution. .
Although consultation procedures that developed between the congressional and executive branches led to congressional acceptance of collective security, controversy over presidential use of such agreements instead of treaties sustained. The Cast Act of 1972 stated Congress must be informed upon completion of all presidential executive agreements. The matter rather than the method of executive-agreement usage remains the greater potential cause of conflict between the two branches. .
Congressional resolutions are used as a method of achieving an expression of legislative support for administration foreign policy. For example, President Eisenhower, although he "had friends on both sides of the aisle", and his administration depended upon supporting resolutions to ensure the successful implementation of foreign policy. Supporting resolutions are useful if future policy making requires the Senate to ratify a treaty, although these resolutions are an exercise of the advice function instead of the consent function.