According to our Constitution, the President is our Commander in Chief, which is why pundits like to write history, with words like Bush's war, or Kennedy's war, or FDR's war, and so on and so forth, since each of these Presidents were the respective Commander in Chief when America was at war. The problem though with this simple-minded viewpoint is the absolute distortion it actually provides to what is really going on behind the scenes when it comes to America and its wars. For instance, with the exception of FDR, no President has ever served more than two terms, or a limit of eight years, whereas Generals and other military figures can and have served decades in the "service" to their country, not to mention the armament corporations that are built to last seemingly forever.
This means, when our President that is elected by the people, comes into office as our Commander in Chief they are up against, the military-industrial edifice, which has as of 2017, a budget of $582.7 billion dollars, which represents more than 50% of the government's expenditure on what is considered to be "discretionary spending". This would clearly indicate that any President, would if he was determined to butt heads with defense spending, find himself thoroughly outmanned in every avenue of influence upon such, for the military-industrial complex is so gargantuan large, so ingrained, and so entrenched, that no single man, no matter his position, even as Commander in Chief, would be able to make a meaningful impact without some other massive government agency of power working side-by-side with the Commander in Chief, and that just isn't going to happen, because the history of worldly power, has been almost always the history of he who has the guns, has the Might and he who has the Might, makes the rules.
There are, however, been twelve Presidents of the United States, that were actually generals, of course, not all generals are equal, so eight of those Presidents, while being generals, were not truly close to being at the pinnacle of military power, but still that leaves four generals that were forces in of themselves, that knew intimately the military-industrial complex, and could truly be said, to be the real Commander in Chief. The first of these four was George Washington, unanimously elected twice as President, the "father of our country" and its General and Commander-in-Chief of its armies, of which, the men that served our newfound nation were absolutely loyal to our first President, George Washington. Next, there was Andrew Jackson, who fought not only in our revolutionary war, but also was the hero of the War of 1812, with his masterful stand in New Orleans and reached the rank of Major General, of which those that served under Jackson, revered him. Ulysses S. Grant became Lieutenant General of the Union Army forces during our Civil War, was Lincoln's favorite and most important general, and was twice elected President of the United States. The last formidable Commander in Chief, was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commanding General of the Allied Powers in Europe during World War II, and was twice elected President of America. Each of these men, were true Commander in Chiefs, for they were military men of the highest order, and thereby held meaningful sway over military personnel of all ranks, yet even Eisenhower, warned Americans that "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."
This warning, given by Eisenhower, was prescient, for the military-industrial complex since the time that this speech was presented in January of 1961, has gone on to become a power onto itself, controlled not by the American people, controlled not by the elected Commander in Chief, but controlled by unelected military officials in conjunction with their massive defense contractors to rule the roost, and to essentially determine American international warand armaments policy without legislativeand without executive input, for their influence is conducted behind the scenes, in which they are never outvoted, never outwitted, and never told what to do by a so-called Commander in Chief.