Well not quite, they still have to authorise and appropriate the necessary funds, if any are required beyond those already appropriated and authorised that is. Congress has done so in this case. We ARE at war.
As I read what seems to be the prevalent interpretation, if we are attacked we are at war. It's only if some nations acts against us in a non violent manner that none the less is a cause belli, a blockade perhaps, that Congress needs to Declare War.
Interesting how we've all been brainwashed since the Korean War at least into thinking we could not be at war unless Congress declared us to be. Kinda changes the notion that Treason is only a crime if Congress has declared war, now doesn't it? Hanoi Jane, et. al., are you reading this?
The fact the Roosevelt asked for recognition that a “state of war has existed” (for some period without a formal declaration of such) and Congress, by so doing, gives precedence and Congressional acknowledgement for the legal points we discussed.
Commercial law also gives full acknowledgement that there are two kinds of war, declared and non-declared. The Act-of-War exclusion contained in many property damage policies contains the phrase that …….coverage is not extended to damages as a result of “war, declared or undeclared.”
This again puts “undeclared” war on equal footing with “declared” war.