Yep. John Adams fought a naval war against France with no DOW. Jefferson sent the navy to take out the Barbary Pirates with no DOW. I suppose they didn’t know the constitution? Congress has the power to declare war, nothing says the president needs a DOW to send troops into combat.
Now even if he did need an authorization just for the sake of argument, the War Powers Act authorizes any president to fight for 60 days without an approval and another 30 days to withdrawal. So every president has pre-approval to fight anywhere, as long as he keeps it short. Of course members of congress have tried to sue under the WPA, and no court has ever gone along, and no administration has ever accepted that it’s constitutional to put any restrictions on the president’s war making powers.
People who say he needs a DOW are simply putting their own interpretation on the clause that flies in the face of all US history, legal precedent and the founders like Adams and Jefferson.
Your examples of Adama and Jefferson are extremely disengenous. In both examples, Congress passed a series of laws/funding mechanism that directed the Presidents on how to act. In fact Jefferson waited for instructions from Congress. The reason there were not DOWs was purely diplomatic. Other than that, Congress called the shots.