The Power to Invade: Armed Primacy and Congressional Conflict, 1977-1987

Abstract

The Power to Invade: Armed Primacy and Congressional Conflict, 1977-1987 highlights the critical importance of the U.S.’s pursuance of a strategy of armed primacy (leadership, supremacy, and/or dominance) during the Carter and Reagan administrations which was driven by a competition with the Soviet Union in the Cold War. This book argues that armed primacy was a unifying historiographic throughline in Cold War Presidential administrations. During the Carter and Reagan years (1977-1987), the pursuit of this strategy, especially in U.S. foreign policy actions in Latin America, led to conflict between the branches of the U.S. government in foreign policy making and growth in Presidential power.