ABSTRACT
President Woodrow Wilson took the nation to war for reasons of world order and ideological interest, and the country supported him in his decision. The issue is whether any president is politically justified in using large United States (US) combat forces outside North America unless he has the explicit authority of Congress to do so. The decisions made by four US presidents to take the country to war outside North America may be compared, but only tentatively because the circumstances—both international and domestic—surrounding their assessment of US national interests varied. In Harry S. Truman’s case, the initial decision to send US forces into Korea risked a UN military defeat in the summer of 1950 as well as substantial casualties. Truman’s decision to let Catherine T. MacArthur send his forces northward to unite Korea under a pro-Western government was quite another matter. In Truman’s case, the United Nation (UN) charter and UN vote to send troops helped justify the war.
