The War Powers Act as a restraint on presidential authority

¶ … War Powers Act Constitutes a Restraint on the President

The War Powers Act as such was resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress, and the Act is also referred to as the 'War Powers Resolution', and the basic purpose of the Resolution was that it would fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States, and also that it would make sure of the fact that the collective judgment of the Congress and the President would be applicable to the introduction of the United States Armed Forces into any form of situation that would warranty the application of hostilities. Under the Section 8, Article 1, there is also a provision that ensures that the Congress would have all the powers that are deemed necessary to be carried out, and these powers may not only be those that belong to the Congress, but also those powers that have been vested in the Government by the Constitution of the United States of America.

The War Powers Act also states that the President would enjoy certain Constitutional powers, according to which he would be the Commander-in-chief, and therefore, he would have the powers to introduce the Armed Forces of the United States into any hostilities or into an imminent introduction to hostilities. However, these powers must be exercised by the president only under certain specific circumstances, one of them being a declaration of war, and the other, a specific statutory authorization, and another, any type of national emergency situation, which has been created in the U.S.A. By a terrorist attack or any other dire circumstances.

It must be noted here that the decision of whether or not a particular country must go to war or not is, perhaps, the most important decision that the country can make, and since a war involves the usage of a large amount of national resources, it must be a decision that must be taken collectively, by all the leaders of that country, and in the United States of America, this decision has been granted, mainly, to the Congress, and as a part of the separation of powers, the authority of being a Commander-in-Chief has been delegated to the President.