The Neutrality Act: A Tool to Implement Policy

Historically, the United States has maintained a national security policy that no one may conduct or initiate from the United States any military expedition against any foreign nation or people with whom the United States is at peace. The objective of the policy is to prevent entanglements between the United States and foreign powers, or with the relations between a nation-state and its insurgent people, in such a way that could lead the United States into conflict. This project examines the legal framework enacted to implement this strategy. The research reveals that agreements formed and actions taken in the United States to effect a military or naval expedition against a foreign state with which the United States is at peace, or to murder, kidnap, or maim persons in a foreign country, or to damage or destroy property located in and owned by a government with which the United States is at peace, are criminal violations of United States law. The United States is at peace with other countries so long as there is no declared state of war nor open and notorious military action being waged between the United States and that country. In the constitutional form of government of the United States, the President is charged with conducting foreign affairs, and the Congress is charged with the responsibility to raise Armies, to provide and maintain a Navy, and to declare war. The President and Congress cannot allow the foreign policy of the United States to be determined by private parties, organizations and groups, or to allow those private parties to take actions that have the potential to commit the United States to war. The Neutrality Act and related statutes are one of the tools that the United States uses to implement its national security strategy of committing the United States to war only when authorized by Congress pursuant to its power under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.