House Foreign Affairs Committee Research Articles

Reclaiming Congressional War Powers: Opening Statement

In this opening statement for a House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on Reclaiming Congressional War Powers, I address three matters: First, I explain why I think it is wise to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force in Iraq. Second, I outline what I see as key priorities in the effort to repeal and replace the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Third, I speak about top priorities for war powers reform more generally.

Unmasking Uncle Sam: A Legal Test for Identifying State Media

In December 2018, the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee published a report detailing how the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the flagship federal state media agency, improperly targeted Americans with its content through social media 860 times over a two-year period. U.S. state media agencies have enormous resources, and if left unchecked, could unduly influence free public discourse and threaten the independence of the American free press. To address this growing concern, this Article proposes a new comprehensive legal test for identifying state media that incorporates existing approaches employed by the federal government and private media entities for analyzing government publications.

The United States and Israel

The United States and Israel

Turkish Politics

Donald M. Payne, Democrat from New Jersey, is a member of the US House of Representatives and chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ten Scenarios for a “New World Order”

“Our strategy is to lead a global alliance, political alliance if you will, to isolate Iraq politically, economically and militarily …. We remain the one nation that has the necessary political, military and economic instruments at our disposal to catalyze a successful response by the international community.” (James Baker, U.S. Secretary of State, Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, September 5, 1990)

Commentary on Timothy J. Brennan, “Academic Disciplines and Representative Advocacy”

I am going to comment first on the diagnosis Timothy Brennan gives of the problem with academic advocacy, and then on his suggestions for therapy. I will be speaking on the basis of my experience as one of the American Phil osophical Association Congressional Fellows. I worked for one year on the personal staff of Congressman Lee Hamilton (Democrat, Indiana) and was then put on the permanent staff of his subcommittee, the subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In that position I helped to set up many Congressional Hearings, and in par ticular I helped to choose academic witnesses for those Hearings. Since my experience was on Congressional staff, I will speak directly about the role of academic witnesses testifying to Congress. I hope what I say will have relevance to the broader problem addressed by Timothy Brennan, namely the advocacy role of academic witnesses. First, then, his diagnosis. He sees three kinds of harm arising from academic experts giving testimony on occasions where they are explicitly asked or implicitly expected to support a belief held by the client prior to the testimony. The first harm lies in the reduction of the expert's independence and credibility; the second in the injury to the reputation of the expert's discipline (economics, for example, comes to be seen as a rationalization of previously held political opinion); the third in the destructive exploitation of the communicative trust binding society together (society requires the assumption of honest self-representation, especially when the judgements made are the most difficult to verify independently, and academic advocacy puts this assumption in jeopardy). I think these three problems are genuine, but that they all derive from a more fundamental problem which is implicit in Brennan's treatment, and can helpfully be made explicit. The more fundamental problem is that academic advocacy very easily becomes a species of fakery. I use this word in reference

The United States and Cambodia: The Limits of Compromise and Intervention

The modalities of fighting while talking with the enemy ? the strategem that bedevilled America's course in the Vietnam war and confronts it again in Nicaragua ? are also catching up with the United States in the Cambodian con flict. On 19 January 1985, in the midst of the most intense Vietnamese offensive against Cambodian rebels thus far, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, Paul Wolfowitz, declared after discussions with Thai security officials in Bangkok that the United States would not provide any military aid to the Cambodian rebels. The reason, Wolfowitz said, was that such U.S. aid would set back efforts to reach a political solution in the Cambodian conflict, and hence the role of providing rebel assistance should best be taken by others.1 On 25 April 1985, however, in a letter to the chairmen of the foreign relations committees of the U.S. House and Senate, Assistant Secretary William Ball III declared that the Reagan Administration now welcomed a proposal approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on 20 March 1985 to extend US$5 million in military aid to the two non-communist Cambodian rebel factions. Ball said, however, that the Administration's agreement was contingent on the United States retaining con trol over the aid through the U.S. Military Assistance Program.2 It had taken more than a month for the Administration to endorse the House Committee's action and the Reagan Administration reportedly had been reluctant to support any programme of military aid to the Cambodian rebels.3 The idea of granting such aid was first formally suggested by the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Chairman, Representative Stephen J. Solarz (D.-N.Y.). Solarz's journey to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the last week of December 1984 had led him to conclude, inter alia, that not only was Vietnam as yet unwilling to engage in any serious discussions to end the Cambodian conflict, but that, indeed, Hanoi seemed intent on driving a wedge between the Cambodian rebels and their supporters, namely, the People's Republic of China and ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations).4 Even when on 11 February 1985, ASEAN Foreign Ministers, after a special meeting in Bangkok called to consider the implications of Vietnam's widening offensive in Cambodia, issued an international appeal urging all countries to pro vide military aid to the Cambodian rebels in their struggle, there had been no public

The Changing Role of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the 1970s and 1980s

This research examines the extent to which the House Committee on Foreign Affairs has changed in orientation from a committee that is “executive-led” to one that makes a more independent judgment of foreign policy matters. Three types of indicators are used to make this assessment: (1) the composition and political orientation of the committee and its voting support of the President; (2) the changes in political leadership of the committee and its subcommittees; and (3) the issue agenda examined by the committee. Both qualitative (interview) and quantitative data are used in this assessment. On balance, the committee has demonstrated elements of changes in all three areas. As a result, it has assumed a more critical role in the American foreign policy process.

Industry leery of natural rubber agreement

Congress has cleared the way for the U.S. to take part in the International Natural Rubber Agreement. Last month, both the House and the Senate passed legislation authorizing the appropriation of $88 million that the Administration requested to participate in what it is calling a model commodity And the Senate, by a 90 to 1 vote, ratified the agreement. That makes the U.S. the first major natural rubber importing country to ratify the agreement, which is supposed to become operative this October. Malaysia, by far the largest natural rubber producer, was the first country to ratify the agreement when it took the step earlier this year. When the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the appropriation, Rep. Jonathan Bingham (D.-N.Y.), chairman of the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy & Trade, told the committee that U.S. participation in the effort to stabilize natural rubber prices would in no way harm the U.S. rubber industry. Perhaps ...

American Economic Assistance to Africa Some Observations

Several years ago I testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the insufficiency of American aid to Africa. I urged that foreign aid be increased because, in Africa, our foreign aid still had the opportunity of being genuine economic assistance and not something else. It was understood in my remarks that the genuine nature of economic assistance would become apparent as structural changes in African economies took place.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee's Role

The House investigation of tbe Nixon incident underscores the part the lower chamber can play in inter-American relations.

The Exercise of Criminal Jurisdiction Under the Nato Status of Forces Agreement

Concomitant with the stationing of United States armed forces in friendly foreign countries is an increasing concern over, and appreciation of, the legal issues arising from their presence. The most controversial question concerns exercise by the host state of criminal jurisdiction over personnel of the visiting United States force. The House Foreign Affairs Committee after extensive hearings refused to accede to critics’ demands that this exercise of criminal jurisdiction by foreign countries be officially denounced, and by a vote of 19–10 tabled the condemnatory resolutions.1 Congressional concern remains strong, however, and the issue is not dormant.