War elaborated!

War Powers Resolution Act of 1973:
Conflict between Congress and the Commander in Chief

Despite the clean cut seperation of powers intended by the Constitution of the United States, its elaborate wording and diction has unfortunately left a lot of ambiguity in terms of who gets to do what. This issue comes into play rather prominently in terms of the declaration of war and use of the US military. Generally it's believed that because of the President's position as Commander in Chief, it is his responsibility to direct troops and thus within his power to declare war. However, because in the constitution it is specified that Congress has the power to declare war, and the President and Congress have a tendency to be a bit push-and-pull in terms of powers and responsibilities, this created some amount of conflict until Congress passed the War Powers Resolution Act in 1973. This act in itself is relatively controversial and has been unofficially declared by the Presidents of the United States as being unconstitutional--in fact, in order to get it passed in the first place, Congress had to use a 2/3'rds consensus in order to override President Nixon's veto.

The act essentially states that while the President can move troops into action, he must notify the Congress within forty-eight hours, and he has a total of ninety days to wage conflict--not war--on foreign soil, before needing Congress to declare War. That's thirty days to start a fight, and then sixty to back back out of it. Naturally, this doesn't usually play out as planned or desired, being that once a conflict is engaged in, it can take quite a while to resolve it--much longer than sixty days--and once men are over on foreign soil fighting, it's relatively easy for the President to pull the weight of the public behind him, making it difficult for Congress to try and knock him around.