Preview

Weak At Home Strong Abroad Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
749 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Weak At Home Strong Abroad Analysis
“Weak at home, Strong abroad.” Discuss

The Government of the United States of America is composed of three separate branches that include the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branch, whose powers are vested in the US Constitution in The President, Supreme Court and all federal courts and Congress. The President is the Head of State and The Head of Government in the American federal government and many presidents are often claimed to be bifurcated; strong internationally and weak domestically or strong domestically and weak internationally. It is rare to come across a President that is strong both nationally and internationally, it is most likely a case in which a President attempts to assert his/her power domestically but cannot do so due to many checks and balances and therefore tries to show their dominance on an International scale.

A president can be seen to be weak at home, domestically due to a number of checks and balances that they must encounter. An example of a check on the President's power would be the power of
…show more content…
Although only Congress has the right to authorise the use of the armed forces, if the president acts there is little Congress can do to restrain him.This is a power given to the President domestically, executing the power on an international scale gives the President a powerful image that asserts his/her dominance. An example would be Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt's four terms as president were marked by two of the largest threats to America; the Great Depression and World War II. The role President Roosevelt played during World War II showed complete dominance at an international scale, he can be seen to be one of the most influential Presidents that America has ever had. Franklin D Roosevelt was given the power to be Commander-In-Chief, as all Presidents do and had became an international figure because of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Clinton Rossiter's essay entitled "The Presidency - Focus of Leadership" clearly shows that Rossiter believes the president has an overwhelming amount of power. Rossiter stated that the president is leader of the Executive Branch, the forces of peace and war, Congress, his political party, public opinion, and the rituals of American democracy. The president has the power to influence Congress, the power to sway the public's standpoint on things, and the power to partly control war. If Rossiter was asked "How powerful is the presidency?", he would surely answer like many Americans do, that the president is the most powerful person in the world. Rossiter wrote that the president is also the leader of the free nations. This is so because as long as America stays rich and powerful, the president's words will have a large effect on other countries that may be involved with America, giving the president some "world-wide" power along with the large amount of power he already has just over his nation.…

    • 633 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The President of the United States, the chief executive officer of the federal government, the leader of the executive branch, and the commander in chief of the armed forces has certain constitutional powers. How much power does he really have? Does he have too much? Does he have too little, or not enough? In my opinion, I believe that the President of the United States of America has just enough power to run our country, deal with foreign and domestic policies, and fight the War on Terror In this essay, I will discuss my opinion, what the president’s powers are under the Constitution, and whether or not the president’s role has expanded beyond these powers in domestic and foreign policy.…

    • 1367 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    In order to keep the government from becoming too powerful and endangering the liberty of its people, the framers of the United States' Constitution endorsed the implementation of separation of powers so that the different branches of the government would keep one another in check. In Federalist Paper 51, Madison focused on the crucial relationship between the legislative and executive branches with the use of separation of powers. He stated, "In the republican government the legislative authority, necessarily, predominates. The remedy for this inconvenience is, to divide the legislative into different branches...[and] the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified." While the separation of powers has successfully protected the liberty of America's people, it has also caused a continual struggle between the executive and legislative branch to gain power over matters such as the economy, the right to pass legislation, and control over the military. Due to the prevalence of the legislative power severely limiting the authority of the executive, there is a large imbalance between the demands and expectations pressing in upon the President and his capacity to respond to them. The president cannot get his policies adopted by Congress without long delays and much bargaining. However, some fortification of the executive branch has allowed the president overcome some of these limitations in performing roles such as commander in chief, chief diplomat, and chief legislator.…

    • 1723 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. 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.(Article II, section 2)…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the United States our President has many powers that are granted to him when they are elected into office. They have the ability to change the budget, to either cut back on spending, or implement new programs to help their citizens. They can veto a bill that they think is not ready to be made law yet and send it back to congress for further evaluation. They can appoint Supreme Court Justices. They also are the Commander in Chief of all U.S. armies, and they even have the power to send troops over to foreign nations in times of hostility in some circumstances. There are many who believe that the powers of the president are sometimes abused, especially as the Commander in Chief. There have been several instances in our Nation’s history in which the President has been able to wiggle their way around the constitutional limitations that are given of the Commander in Chief. Even though the president is unable to actually declare war he can use his powers to advance a conflict. The article Congressional War Powers, The Commander in Chief and Senator John Mccain describes how this is achieved by stating “Technically only congress has the power to declare war but the President can act unilaterally to repel sudden attacks made on U.S. Soil” (Bowling, 2008, p. 1). Presidents use these executive powers to engage in a conflict that they believe needs to be settled in times of crisis. The Constitution has a system within-it that tries to grant separate but equal powers to all branches of government called checks and balances. Although this system of checks and balances is supposed to be followed, there are ways which certain branches of government can gain more power than others. Often the President is the one who abuses the system, and uses their executive powers for their own advantages. These powers granted to the President have been abused more and more throughout our Nation’s recent history and it needs to…

    • 2425 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The office of president today is very different from that envisaged by the framers of the constitution in 1787- the circumstances that have given rise to modern presidential power could not have been foreseen. However some argue that the office of president is one of inherent weakness rather than strength, and that the powers of the president were no guarantee that power could actually be exercised. In his view, presidential leadership was possible only when there were extraordinary crisis conditions such as depression or war. F.D. Roosevelt is often given as an example of such a president.…

    • 713 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Presidential powers are laid out in article II of the constitution, these include a range of formal power such as the power to propose legislation, submit the annual budget, sign legislation, veto legislation, act as chief executive, nominate federal judges and several others. There are also a range of informal powers that have progressively increased in power such as the ability for Presidents to issue executive orders. Although the founding fathers intended to create a government that had a system of checks and balances to prevent tyranny, the effectiveness of these checks in place may not have been as authoritative as intended as the President has ways of getting around the checks in place.…

    • 963 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Although presidents have limited constitutional authority, many of them effectively use. Write an essay in which you discuss the limits to presidential power, the importance of the presidency’s informal powers. Explain whether you think the nature of presidential power makes the Presidency too weak, or too strong.…

    • 3061 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    U.S President is often considered as the most powerful person on Earth. U.S President has many powers, but President cannot misuse his powers. The system called checks and Balances keeps everything in order for the U.S government to run. If Congress thinks that the president is misusing his power, the congress can impeach the president, but in order to do that congress requires 2/3 of majority votes. There are three branches in the U.S government, Legislative, Executive, and the judicial branches. The president is the head of the Executive branch, which is responsible for enforcing laws passed by the congress.…

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imperial Presidency

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages

    According to the constitution, the president is Command and Chief of the military forces of the United States. Therefore he is able to declare war at any time, without the consent of congress. This is one of the most powerful powers that the…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Presidency In The 1700s

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Some of the powers which were assigned to the president by the constitution are, Military powers, the president is in commander in chief, because they didn’t want the military general to seize the government. Diplomatic powers in which the president…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, American politics has evolved and there are circumstances to which a President is allowed to exercise an increased amount of power because part of his/her “head of state role” includes people turning to them for answers and decisions and therefore emergency powers need to be at hand in order for them to be able to do this. However, they are not effectively unrestrained because there are always collective bodies there monitoring the President’s decisions. Even if the policies are dealing with foreign affairs, the media are always around documenting and reporting back to the republic and their opinions can be seen as restraining to a President much like Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam…

    • 1745 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the president's strengths, which he shares with the Senate, is to negotiate treaties, appoint ambassadors, judges, and high officials. Another major strength is the responsible of the president's job. As a nation, we place no greater responsibility on any one individual than we do on the president. Not one other job is as complex and complicated. We ask the president to be executive, diplomat, military leader, and consoler. On any given day he might have to make life and death decisions, propose policies that will change the course of the country, and then greet a group of elementary schoolchildren. Although the president shares power with Congress and the judiciary, he is the most powerful and important officeholder in the country. As the principal foreign policy maker, the president of the United States has become the world's most important leader in international affairs. These responsibilities have grown dramatically from the time George Washington took up his sword during the Whiskey Rebellion to the day Harry S. Truman authorized dropping an atomic bomb on Japan. The burden of such awesome power rests heavily on every president.…

    • 875 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One power the President has is commander in chief. The president is commander in chief of the armed forced and is charged with the defence of the USA. The President has the power to order the use of troops overseas without actually declaring war. For example, in 2002…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As Richard Neustadt explained, the President possesses "an extraordinary range of formal powers" and has "extraordinary status, ex officio…" . But at the same time, the President, despite his "powers" cannot obtain results merely by giving orders. Rather, his power derives from the "power to persuade" 1. As the first citizen of the nation, the President is not a dictator of his people. Instead of giving orders, he must work as a fellow citizen to persuade his people into agreeing with his plans. With the President's high status and influence, "what he could do tomorrow may supply today's advantage" 1. Clearly, the President exerts great influence on the lives of the citizens and they very well know that "at some time, in some degree, the doing of their jobs…may depend upon the President" 1. The President takes on the ultimate leadership role among his fellow citizens. But he also is very much a part of the civilian population since he is "dependent on their [citizens] knowledge, judgment, and good will." 1.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays