Foreign Policy and Congressional Activity or, Can Congress Survive the Solicitude of Its Friends?

Extract

The necessity for books dealing with Congress and foreign policy is not immediately apparent. The authors of both volumes under review remind us that Congress is not central to foreign policy-making, and that foreign policy-making is not central to the business of Congress. The fact that this is so poses indirectly a question important to both books. Given the increasing impact of foreign affairs on America's future, is it enough for Congress merely to lobby, to warn, to complain, to snip at budgets and attempt to modify policies set by a burgeoning, technically specialized executive? Must not Congress change its ways, or shrink into an unequivocally subordinate place in our Constitutional system, as foreign affairs occupy more and more of the landscape?