Thatcher visits the U.S. in 1981.

Today, part of Thatcher’s mantle has been passed on to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom Forbes ranks as the most powerful female leader in the world.

In fact, Merkel, 58, is ranked by Forbes as the second most powerful leader in the world, trailing only America’s president, Barack Obama.

But Merkel is hardly the only woman who is the functional head of state or the leader of a major international organization in today’s world.

Prominent leaders include South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye; Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff; International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde; Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; India’s Sonia Gandhi, who leads the nation’s biggest political party; Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi; Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia; President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines; and Thailand prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

In the United States, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is a leading, but undeclared, candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, while Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius, and Janet Napolitano have prominent government roles. At least six women in addition to Clinton have been discussed as potential 2016 candidates: Republicans Kelly Ayotte, Condoleezza Rice, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and Sarah Palin; and Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren.

However, at least in Forbes’ ranking of the 71 most powerful people in world, the glass ceiling is firmly in place: There are only six women in the list of business leaders, politicians, and philanthropists.

In Thatcher’s time, few world leaders held as much power, regardless of gender. Her rise to prime minister in 1979 was a novelty at the time. Indira Gandhi of India, Golda Meir of Israel, and Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka preceded her in leadership positions at the helm of nations.

During Thatcher’s term in office, from 1979 until 1990, Gandhi was elected again as prime minister, only to be assassinated. Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto was elected in 1988, but she was out of office before Thatcher was. Bhutto was assassinated as she attempted a political comeback in 2007.

Thatcher was a staunch ally of her personal friend, Ronald Reagan, and she was victorious as the leader of the Conservative Party in three elections. It was a squabble inside her own party that led to her resignation in late 1990.

In 2010, Time magazine named Thatcher one of the 25 most powerful women of the 20th century.

“A woman with high standards and a short temper, Margaret Thatcher was not known as Britain’s Iron Lady for nothing,” Time said, also noting Thatcher’s role in the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Thatcher had to fight her way through the British political system to obtain a Cabinet-level post in 1970. Six years later, she became the leader of the Conservatives.

According to one biography, the quick-witted Thatcher caught the ire of Prime Minister Edward Heath, who she felt was ignoring her at Cabinet meetings.

“If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman,” Thatcher told a group.

Thatcher replaced Heath as party leader in 1975 and led a successful no-confidence vote in 1979 that made her prime minister.

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When President Nixon died in 1994 at the age of 81, after a brief illness, the current president, Clinton, extended full state honors to Nixon almost 20 years after he resigned from office.

Clinton also spoke at Nixon’s funeral in California, and as of this day, he fondly cites his last letter from Nixon, received about a month before Nixon’s passing.

So why would Clinton and Nixon decide to form a brief, nonpartisan friendship?

The answer can be found in two words: foreign policy.

On the surface, the two men had little in common. As a college student, Clinton had protested against the Vietnam War. His wife, now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was a young lawyer who worked on the impeachment staff for the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate.

Likewise, President Nixon had unflattering words for war protesters like Bill Clinton when he was president, and he had some sharp early critiques of the early Clinton campaign in 1992.

The extent of their friendship came out in April 1994, when Nixon died in New York after suffering a stroke.

The New York Times detailed their relationship, which gave Nixon the satisfaction of a quiet role as a presidential counselor and Clinton the chance to tap into Nixon’s considerable experience with Russia and China.

The Times said the ice was broken when several politicians, including then-Senator Bob Dole, reached out to President Clinton, as Nixon was writing an op-ed story for the Times.

Nixon’s article praised parts of Clinton’s foreign policy regarding Russia, and the private friendship started.

While Nixon still had reservations about some Clinton policies in public, he was talking with the young president about Russia and other topics in private.

As a young vice president, Nixon had faced off against Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in the Kitchen Debate in the old Soviet Union, and his landmark 1972 trip to the Soviet Union was a key turning point in U.S.-Russia relations, coming just months after Nixon’s historic China trip.

Clinton still speaks about his last letter from Nixon: a critique of the evolving situation in Russia and its new president, Boris Yeltsin.

Television commentator Monica Crowley was a 21-year-old grad student in 1990 who wound up as a personal assistant to Nixon until his death in 1994, and she had first-hand knowledge of the relationship, which is detailed in her book, Nixon in Winter.

“Clinton got much-needed foreign policy advice from the nation’s elder statesman, and Nixon got a measure of public credibility and access to the president,” said Crowley. She also says it was Dole who built the bridge between the two presidents.

Clinton’s eulogy at the Nixon memorial service surprised some observers for its own sense of bipartisanship.

“He made mistakes, and they, like his accomplishments, are a part of his life and record. But the enduring lesson of Richard Nixon is that he never gave up being part of the action and passion of his times,” Clinton said. “He said many times that unless a person has a goal, a new mountain to climb, his spirit will die. Well, based on our last phone conversation and the letter he wrote me just a month ago, I can say that his spirit was very much alive to the very end.”

The letter from Nixon was a detailed analysis of the situation in the region of the former Soviet Union that Nixon had visited in 1993.

In his book The Clinton Tapes, author Taylor Branch was with President Clinton on the night he received word that former President Nixon’s death was imminent.

Clinton told Branch that Nixon suffered the same kind of stroke that killed Hillary Clinton’s father. Nixon’s letter was the best foreign policy analysis he’d seen, Clinton said, and he had only shared it with his vice president, Al Gore.

Ironically, Clinton taped his conversations with Branch in the White House, and those tapes have yet to be released.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

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Source: National Archives

But the Cuban Missile Crisis gets too much attention. Focusing on any single crisis distorts the central problem of the Cold War for the United States. The Cold War was a long-term competition, stretching over five decades.

Looking only at one single crisis is like studying an NFL football game by looking at the highlight play. It’s a five-second video clip. It’s fascinating to watch. But however important it is, it doesn’t obviate the importance of the game plan, creative thinking of coaches and players, and performance on the field in the rest of the game. It doesn’t incorporate blunders (fumbles and blown plays) or good advisers (injured players).

The pattern in the Cold War was not for a straight line development of nuclear dangers, either up or down. There were periodic changes in its intensity. Just recall how the 1970s were built around arms control and stabilizing the nuclear relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter built their foreign policies around détente. But in the 1980s this was followed by the Ronald Reagan build-up, nuclear threats by both sides, accidents like the shooting down of Korean Airliner 007, and serious nuclear mishaps inside the Soviet command and control system.

Today we are in a second nuclear age. There are regional competitions in the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. They are long term, and now, they too have a nuclear context.

For example, in the Middle East, Iran seems unlikely to voluntarily give up its atomic program. Israel is restructuring its nuclear deterrent, putting more of it on submarines so that it cannot be taken out by any Islamic country with missiles and the bomb.

In South Asia, Pakistan is rapidly building up its stock of nuclear weapons. It is the fastest-growing nuclear country in the world today. India has deployed a “triad” like the superpowers did 50  years ago. New Delhi is placing nuclear weapons aboard bombers, missiles, and submarines.

In East Asia, North Korea has about a dozen nuclear weapons, a long-range missile program, and a large stock of chemical weapons. China is radically overhauling its own nuclear posture, fielding mobile missiles, stealth aircraft, and anti-satellite weapons. It now has a much more agile nuclear force.

We need to take a step back from these national details to look at the broader picture. The political differences which drive conflict in these three regions show no signs of resolution. But more, they now have a nuclear context. Like the first nuclear age, the second seems positively likely to have ebbs and flows in the intensity of the competition and in the dangers associated that come with this.

Instead of the Cuban Missile Crisis as a metaphor for nuclear dangers, a better one for the second nuclear age is that it’s like the man who dodges cars to cross a busy freeway. He may get away with this once or twice, but if he does it repeatedly he’s bound to get hit. In the second nuclear age, there are three regional freeways, not just one as in the first nuclear age. In the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia, nuclear weapons are deployed out in the open. And the number of countries with the bomb is more likely to increase than it is to decrease.

A good question comes out of this way of framing the problem. Is it even possible to have these regional rivalries stay limited?

They may make it through one crisis. Maybe even two. But if they try it enough times, as in the Cold War or with the metaphor of the man crossing the highway, the odds of the rivalry staying restrained go down sharply. The missile crisis is interesting to analyze, but it misses the key point that in a long-term competition there are likely to be many, repeated crises. We may need a lot more luck to get through the second nuclear age than we needed in the first.

Paul Bracken is professor of management and political science at Yale University and the author of the new book The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics (Times Books).

Since this spring, commentators have expressed alarm over the president’s use of military force throughout the Muslim world without authorization from Congress. As the president sends fresh Marines into Libya, American forces continue drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and the U.S. weighs intervention in Syria, we are once again in the throes of a long-standing debate over the constitutionality of executive war-time power.

Article I of the U.S. Constitution bestows the president with “commander-in-chief powers,” but provides virtually no elaboration on what they entail. The laconic text was left in such a state, in part, because everyone in 18th century already knew what this phrase meant: those powers wielded by General George Washington.

During the Revolution, Washington served as the only commander-in-chief for the young nation. He gallantly developed the very meaning of the term amidst the crucible.

When the Framers gathered in Philadelphia at the Constitutional Convention, he served as not only the President of the Convention, but as the model for the newly formed Executive Branch.

So when they gave the President “commander-in-chief” powers, Washington served of the living embodiment of those terms. The precedents he set as the nation’s first commander-in-chief would, thus, have a lasting impact on the meaning of the Constitution.

As we debate the current administration’s military policies, we might do well to ask ourselves “What Would George Do?” An analysis of George Washington’s two terms as president, reveal two interesting precedents: an inclination toward isolationism and congressional consultation.

I. Isolationism

Washington was highly reluctant to entangle the United States in the affairs of other nations, even ignoring allies’ pleas for help securing liberty. For example, when the French overthrew the chains of monarchy in their quest for democracy, Washington refused to help. And when Britain subsequently declared war on France, Washington again stayed away.

Washington’s decision was motivated by his unashamed desire to protect America’s self-interest—another war with Great Britain would be too costly and was unlikely result in an American victory. Washington famously asked in his farewell address in his farewell address, “[w]hy quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any [other nation], entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of . . . ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?”

When Washington did lead the United States into conflict, he made sure it was of direct benefit to the nation. When Haitian slaves revolted in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, Washington lent aid to the French. His decision was motivated by his desire to serve American interests: he used the aid to repay the U.S.’s debt owed to France for assistance during the Revolutionary War, and also sought to preserve Southern economic interests by dissuading American slaves from following suit.

It is worth noting that in the rare instances in which Washington determined that the direct benefits outweighed the costs of committing U.S. lives and resources abroad, he made sure to first obtain congressional approval for his actions. Modern presidents, including President Obama, have not necessarily followed Washington’s lead.

II. Congressional Approval

In 2011, Yale Law professor Bruce Ackerman poignantly wrote, “In taking the country into a war with Libya, Barack Obama’s administration [broke] new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency – an executive who increasingly acts independently of Congress at home and abroad.” In ordering the U.S. air strikes on Libya, President Obama consulted the United Nations, NATO, and even the Arab League, but apparently not the United States Congress.

In fact, as Professors Ackerman and Hathaway have pointed out, “[h]e ignored repeated calls — by . . . Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden, among others — to submit it to Congress for approval.” Along the same lines, the President has not obtained legislative authorization for his drone strikes within Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia. George Washington, among others, would be surprised, to say the least.

The Constitution was specifically designed to ensure congressional involvement in the initiation of hostilities. James Madison declared, “The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature. . . . the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.” And even during those actions without a formal declaration, the legislature played an important role in authorizing the Executive’s actions.

Since before the Revolution, Americans had fought against a confederation of numerous Native American tribes for control of the Northwest Territory. After the United States emerged triumphant, the seething British incited the Native Americans to renew their attacks. In response, President Washington sent troops to enforce the U.S.’s control over the territory.

While he did not have a formal declaration of war, this was a continuing war in which Congress was very much so involved. Washington defended the land claims granted by Congress and the American settlers directly under siege. He was in close communication with Congress, which responded favorably to Washington’s pleas and granted the funds to raise the army he sent. While undeclared, this was a war that was granted and continually received congressional approval.

Following Washington’s lead just a few years later in 1789, President John Adams commanded the U.S. military against France in the “Quasi War.” Although Congress did not declare war, it passed the long-winded “Act Further to Protect the Commerce of the United States.” While it did not exactly roll off the tongue, the Act did the trick – Adams had Congressional authorization to protect American shipping under attack.

Again, in 1801, when pirates were likewise threatening U.S. ships, President Thomas Jefferson attacked – ironically – Tripoli without a declaration of war. However, he did have other congressional votes to back him. Congress authorized him to seize the ships of Tripoli and “to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will justify.”

At our nation’s founding, military action was a last resort—one only utilized to directly better American interests or defend against attack. And when the Washington and the first presidents led the nation into battle, Congress was deeply involved in the initiation of military action.

This history remains highly relevant as we navigate our response to the dire situations in Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and Syria. In order to fully understand the powers of the president as this list keeps growing, we better understand the terse text of Article II by looking to Washington and our founding fathers for guidance on how to respond to unique global challenges while remaining faithful to our nation’s core constitutional principles.

Logan Beirne is an Olin Searle Scholar at Yale Law School and the author of Blood of Tyrants: Washington’s War. He received his J.D. from Yale, was a Fulbright Scholar at Queen’s University, and practiced as an attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.Logan is directly descended from Revolutionary War patriots and his family tree includes the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison. Some of Washington’s papers were discovered in his ancestor’s storage chest!

In February 2011, a popular uprising ousted long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak, in an action that became a worldwide event.

But in recent months, the Muslim Brotherhood and the nation’s military rulers couldn’t reach an accommodation as it became clear the Brotherhood would have a strong say in parliament and in selecting people who would write the country’s new constitution.

Late last week, the military undertook what is being called a “soft coup,” declaring parliament invalid and allowing a military-backed candidate to oppose the Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohammed Morsi, in this weekend’s presidential run-off election.

It didn’t matter, as Morsi has apparently won the election (the official vote count will be announced by Thursday).

Instead, the military declared it would appoint its own panel to write the new constitution and it stripped the president-elect of most of the position’s previous powers. The military will also act as Egypt’s version of Congress, for now.

The Muslim Brotherhood responded with a statement that it would reconvene the old parliament and write its own constitution.

The military is expected to hand over what presidential powers remain to Morsi in several weeks.

Stuck in the middle are the young, secular activists who forced Mubarak from power, and who don’t have an allegiance to the military or the Muslim Brotherhood.

The crisis should also become part of the ongoing presidential campaign in the United States, since GOP leaders criticized President Barack Obama during the Arab Spring.

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