The peace powers: How to end a war

The 'Constitution' seems silent about who may end a war and how they may do so. There is no "declare peace" clause, and scholarship has long neglected this matter. Yet given two "Forever Wars," considerable fatigue with both, and numerous demands to end them, the question of how to end hostilities is exceptionally salient. We conduct an overdue dissection and reveal that the 'Constitution' charts many paths to peace. The familiar route consists of the executive negotiating and, with the Senate's consent, ratifying a peace treaty. But there are other paths, more obscure and less comprehensive but nonetheless viable and valuable. First, the President can end combat via an armistice. Second, Congress can halt war funding, thereby ending US warfighting. Third, Congress can legislatively terminate the use of military force. Whether a peace develops via one of these alternative routes depends upon whether the enemy ends warfare as well and, importantly, whether that mutual cessation of hostilities endures. In assessing these pathways, the article underscores an oft-forgotten feature of the 'Constitution': it does not always neatly separate powers. It sometimes grants multiple institutions independent authority to achieve similar ends, creating an overlap. When it comes to peace, this point has been lost. As the Forever Wars march forward, almost inexorably, federal policymakers should familiarize themselves with the Constitution's many roads to peace.