I was going to mention the effort to defeat the barbary pirates. I also think these foreign terrorist operations are a similar situation and it puts the solution into a naval arena. “Anchors Aweigh. Sail on to victory And sink their bones to Davy Jones, hooray!”
A comment on policy and executive action in pre-DoD America.
Pre-DoD, we has a Department of the Navy, and a Department of War.
The mostly unlegislated, unspoken agreement in the American polity was that what the President needed to do to protect the country, that he could do with the Navy (and the Marines, who were part of the Navy), he could do without obtaining a declaration of war from Congress.
If he needed the Army, if the Department of War was needed, it was time for - TA-DA - a declaration of war.
This was operational and basically worked for the first ~170 years of this country’s existence, before the creation of the combined DoD.
What we are seeing is very much in line with American history.