If You Don’t Suceed At First. . . James Baker to Head Up National War Powers Commission

Ready for another blue-ribbon commission? This week’s entry comes with the launch of a “National War Powers Commission“, to be run out of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Baker will share co-chairing honors with Warren Christopher. Other commission members include Lee Hamilton (how many commissions can one person belong to – Hamilton surely would be at or close to the top of the list), Ed Meese, Carla Hills, and Brent Scowcroft. (Where’s Warren Rudman?) Doris Kearns Godwin headlines as a historian; Anne-Marie Slaughter, David Leebron, John Jeffries, and W. Taylor Reveley will add the legal academic expertise.

I have trouble suppressing skepticism as to the utility of this kind of exercise these days. Why do such undertakings seem no longer to pack the same punch as they did in the 70s and 80s (or is that just a function of magnifying something from one’s youth, like a childhood house that seems much larger in the memory than in actual square footage?).

One possibility: because blue-ribbon commissions almost by definition work within the establishment (this one certainly qualifies on that score), they are less likely to come up with something out of the box. That works just fine in times of relative stability. But when there is more fluidity in the foundations, they aren’t very well equipped to devise creative solutions. That, and the fact that establishment itself doesn’t pack the same punch that it once did, with the multiplication of relevant actors. Gone are the days when the Council on Foreign Relations and similar organizations acted as a shadow government.

Not that there’s any harm here. There’s obviously a lot to digest out of recent developments relevant to war powers and one would fully expect a thoughtful product from this effort. But the policy impact seems somewhat less assured.