Suppose President Bush declared war on a whim and against the advice of the Joint Chiefs, generals, Congress, his own cabinet, and the citizenry, decided to surrender. Could “the decider” do it? If so, how? If not, what prevents him?
‘Surrender’ is part of a formal treaty process…so no, Bush couldn’t do it on his own (nor could he declare war on his own of course). Congress at a minimum would have to be involved in any formal surrender.
-XT
Depends on what you mean by “surrender”. He’s the Commander in Chief, so within certain bounds, what he says goes for the military. As far as I know, if he orders the military to lay down arms, they are legally obligated to obey.
However, while the president can simply stop our troops from fighting, he is not empowered to unilaterally accept conditions imposed on our country by the enemy. That would fall under the heading of a treaty, and would require the approval of the senate.
Of course, congress can impeach the president for any reason they damn well want to, or his cabinet could remove him from office. In those cases, the VP could order the troops to resume fighting. I think that would be the most likely scenario unless the US has already been overrun or Congress and the cabinet are both helplessly locked up by infighting.
I cannot imagine any president admitting that he lost and surrendering. It is more likely that he would do like Nixon. Declare himself and his country a winner and try to get out as quickly as possible.
The president isn’t authorized by the constitution to declare war. Nor is he authorized to sign treaties w/o the consent of the Senate. Any surrender treaty not ratified by the Senate would be unconstitutional.
But your scenario is so absurd as to be nonsensical. In order for it take place, all sense of order would have to have been destroyed, and I suspect that by the time we got to that situation the constitution would be meaningless-- we’d be in a state of anarchy.
Well, I guess I can sleep better tonight. I was thinking about those movies where aliens invade and demand surrender and everybody looks at the Commander in Chief.