Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: While legal historians and constitutional scholars may be correct to assume that there was never meant to be a sovereign in the White House and that judicial review and Congressional purse strings sought to guarantee that reality, these constitutional checks have not prevented the development of a nuclear sovereign. For the purposes of this paper, it will be argued that sovereignty—as defined by Schmitt as the authority to decide the exception of the law—may be debatable in the normal political landscape of the United States Federal government even up to and including conventional war, but that there is a dramatic break once we cross the nuclear threshold. The American president is not just Commander-in-Chief of nuclear weapons as if they are some subset of the armed forces; the president has the power to make the very determination of total or final war.