What Happened to the American Declaration of War?

What Happened to the American Declaration of War? by George Friedman April 29, 2011

In my book “The Next Decade,” I spend a good deal of time considering the relation of the American Empire to the American Republic and the threat the empire poses to the republic. If there is a single point where these matters converge, it is in the constitutional requirement that Congress approve wars through a declaration of war and in the abandonment of this requirement since World War II. This is the point where the burdens and interests of the United States as a global empire collide with the principles and rights of the United States as a republic.

World War II was the last war the United States fought with a formal declaration of war.

"What Happened to the American Declaration of War? is republished with permission of STRATFOR."

The Constitution allows for Congress to offer several reasons to use military force with their approval including the declaration of war, punishing offenses against the laws of nations, and putting down rebellions and insurrections. When it isn’t a formal ‘state’ we are going to war against (such as the WOT which is a broader scope) the second is generally the Congressional justification.

Zero, however, didn’t go to Congress at all.

I’d also like to know why we wage wars in which we regard the civilians in the war region as more valuable lives than the lives of our own military.

This may be assumed to be the case when we drop men when bombs would work better (Viet Nam for instance). Let the war drag on, let more Americans be drawn in to fight, but harm not the civilians in the region.

It plays right into the other problem: war as police action. If war is not the time to kill people to the best of your capacity to do so, it’s war most unlikely to be won and more than likely to be based on dubious reasons.

The American military is to defend America, not to advance social, political or humanitarian goals.

We don’t declare war nowadays — because we don’t yet have the effrontery to declare mischief; to declare adventures; to declare buttinsky. The UN helps give us cover for our adventures, and some moral deodorant. Leftism, the so-called peace movement, and many decades of half-baked idealism have contributed to the problem.

War and police. It’s so vastly complex and epic!

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