I know Congress needs to be involved to actually declare war, but there have been a number of times where something was kicked off by presidential authority alone.
If Biden wanted to, could he start a conflict against Russia without congressional approval. If not, what approval would he need? If so, what would be the theoretical limitations to his power and military authority?
I am already assuming people would want some definition of what “conflict” would mean in this hypothetical scenario. So let’s say it means Biden authorized US troops at the Ukrainian border and had them launching shells into Russia.
From 1973 onward, no. While the first Gulf War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq were not declared as wars, they were all authorized in votes by Congress.
I mean, my point still stands. They weren’t officially declared wars, and they were the president deciding to get involved in foreign affairs. The only difference is that Congress decided to vote on our involvement from 1973 onwards.
So our latest presidents have been more generous about sharing the decision instead of steamrolling ahead on their own. Probably a better move politically; he won’t take the full blame if the decision isn’t popular, like Vietnam.
You’re kind of drifting a little bit. I responding to “just the president deciding”- the “just” in that post doing some heavy lifting to frame it as a unilateral decision without the involvement of Congress. When you say “just the person decided” that is saying they alone decided, to the exclusion of others, which isn’t what happened. Without Congress approving, the invasion would not have happened, which is why there was such a huge political run up to get enough of them to sign off on it.
That is basically completely the opposite from “just” the President deciding. It is involving an entire other branch in the decision. It’s not something to handwave away.
They haven’t been “more generous”, they’ve been legally restrained by the War Powers Act, a piece of legislation passed by Congress.
You are right, they weren’t, which is why I didn’t initially address that.
As an aside, if you were deployed to Iraq during the early 2000s, you almost certainly you received a GWOT service medal. GWOT standing for Global War On Terrorism. While Iraq operations were not in and of themselves individually declared a war, the use of the term GWOT by the US Government runs counter to the idea that people were “not allowed” to call it a war, when a medal awarded officially by the military uses the word. If the idea is that the military was an afraid of the word “war”, that’s not really borne out. Politicians and senior military officials at the time openly used the word.
To summarize, I can see three possible points in the previous posts:
Yes, completely true
Given the GWOT medal and statements of politicians and military officials at the time, this seems untrue.
No.
I am only looking to make as factually correct assessment as possible here, operating only in response to what I’m reading.
Man, you sound just like my wife. Always arguing semantics when the overall point I’m making is pretty clear. ;) Now it’s my turn to point out the (ridiculous) semantics of the GWOT.
The Global War on Terrorism was a (rather ignorant) blanket statement made by then-president George W. Bush Jr., implying the concept of fighting terrorism across the globe. It had nothing to do with the Iraq War; it actually predates that campaign. It was a direct response to 9/11, with the Iraq War being the first active military campaign justified under it. We’ve been awarded the two GWOT medals for various military campaigns around the globe. I earned the expeditionary medal from a humanitarian deployment to Africa, of all places, and earned the service medal while stationed in Japan. And they’re still being awarded today, even though we’ve completely pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Despite using the word “war” in the medal’s name, the concept behind it was akin to the “War on Drugs.” It’s not an actual war against a particular nation or people; it’s a war on a concept. How can you fight a concept?!
Terrorism is a very vague word that applies to any situation in which someone uses fear and/or intimidation to get their way. We’ve definitely used that specific definition to justify stepping into situations we had no reason to be involved in. Like Iraq.
Much like the War on Drugs, I’m sure we’ll eventually see that there’s no possible way to win against the concept of terrorism, and we’ll silently phase it out. Heck, we’ve been ordered as of 2021 to start restricting the award of the GWOT-Service medal, so we’re already beginning to phase it out. It was a stupid statement, made by a stupid president who constantly flubbed his words, and shouldn’t be taken at face value.
To your other point, yes, I used the word “just” when referring to the president’s decision. The reason being, it is solely his decision, as the highest ranking leader of the Department of Defense (DoD), to implement the military in “campaigns” across the globe. He does not need anyone’s permission to deploy us.
However, you are correct that the War Powers Act restricts how he uses the military. He can send us out on a whim, but without that approval by Congress, he’d have to pull us back within 30 days. And he’s not allowed to actively order us into hostile situations without approval by Congress.
If we encounter hostilities while out on various campaigns, though, we’re authorized to respond appropriately to the situation via the Rules of Engagement (RoE). Kind of a loophole, which I have definitely seen used before. “Oops, we just happened to be passing through on a patrol and terrorists jumped out of nowhere and opened fire on us! We ended the initial threat, but quick, approve our sustained operations in the area so we can identify and neutralize lingering threats!”
Also, the public referred to the Iraq War as such, and news agencies latched onto the term, so politicians started using it too. And our Public Affairs office instructed military officials who were authorized to speak officially to the public to use common lingo.
But as military members, operating in an official capacity, we were required to use the “correct terminology” in our discussion and documentation, so as not to give off the wrong impression on official records. Which is why we were expected to use Iraq Campaign instead of Iraq War in our official lingo. Future generations will see our official records documented during the Iraq War, and the DoD prefers it’s framed in a certain way, so it doesn’t seem like we were intentionally encouraging a war in the region. As much of a failure as that campaign was, and as paper-thin our excuse was for deploying there, we don’t want people to also think we were just war-hungry terrorists or something. Right?? 9_9
Apologies if my semantics are not 100% accurate; I usually don’t have to deep dive into the specifics about these things with civilians, so I tend to “handwave away” the details, as you put it. I’m sorry if was a bit loose with my verbiage.
Congress in Iraq 2003 authorized before, rather than after. While the President could unilaterally have ordered an invasion with only a short term of authority, he did not. Therefore, the historical example provided was not an example of the President acting without backing of Congress. It was not “just” the President doing so, but the President acting after having obtained legal authority for sustained operations by Congress. Similarly Afghanistan, and the First Gulf War were authorized, and therefore not “just” the President acting.
90 days.
The name of the medal was official. I’m not going to re-litigate the entire subject, but if your point is that there was an aversion to using the word “war” in public, that simply wasn’t so. You, specifically, may have had guidelines in reports, but that was not universal, and certainly not something followed, as you point out, by the President at the time. While war was not officially declared, the President and members of Congress used the word, and Congress authorized it. This is not a moral judgement or defense of the Iraq invasion, but pointing out that framing it solely as a Presidential adventure is inaccurate.
Perhaps an assumption?
All right, now I’m convinced you’re just a burner account for my wife. You’re still arguing semantics, distracting with irrelevant information, and are willingly misunderstanding instead of contributing to the actual conversation. Looks like you care more about arguing than having an actual productive discussion, so it’s not really worth my time to try and rehash this in even simpler terms for you.
But I will condede, I meant 90 days, not 30. That was an honest slip of the fingers.
EDIT: Fine, because it’s bothering me how poorly you’re following this discussion, here’s an actual response:
Irrelevant. My point was that the president can act on his own. Period. That was the whole discussion, from the very start. Congress is not needed. Just because Congress has been consulted with, and approved further action before the president gave the order, doesn’t mean he can’t do it.
You’re trying to say the president can’t send troops overseas into enemy territory without approval from Congress and that is simply wrong. You’ve been quoting the War Powers Act in every thread here, and even corrected me on the 90 days rule, yet you still act like the president’s hands are tied without Congress signing off on everything he does. That’s literally the point of the 90 day rule!
Okay, let me simplify this for you, since you’re struggling with reading comprehension. Publicly, it was called the Iraq War. Because that’s the term the civilian population latched onto and we couldn’t shake that perception. Same with Vietnam War, Korean War, Gulf War, etc. Not official wars, but the public named them and we didn’t argue semantics with news agencies, lest it ruin our credibility. (Like arguing with trolls about semantics online. Hmm…) We do not have an aversion to using “war” publicly. We actually prefer to use that word publicly.
In an official capacity though (read: behind-the-scenes military documentation/records/discussion/etc.), it’s always been the Iraq Campaign. We do not call it a war because Congress never declared war. It’s literally as simple as that. Our written military history will officially have it documented as a military campaign and nothing more. The medal awarded for participation in the Iraq War is literally called the Iraq Campaign Medal.
The medal you’re referring to in your comment is the Global War on Terrorism medal. Not related to the Iraq War, or any war in particular. It’s a stupid declaration by a former president who wanted to make a statement about standing up to the 9/11 attacks, and award any service member who takes part in this so-called “War on Terror.”
And again, we use the word “war” publicly, so there’s no reason we can’t have it on that particular medal. It’s not referencing a specific military campaign, so it can be named the Global War on Terrorism medal. Refer to the “War on Drugs” comment in my last reply.
An assumption about what? You obviously didn’t serve in the military, or else you would know all this and I wouldn’t have to spell this out multiple times for you. So yes, I’m assuming you’re just a civilian who read a few articles and are now struggling to follow actual information from someone who experienced it first-hand through the military, because it didn’t align with whatever comprehension you took away from the subject.