One of the defining failures of modern American government has been the steady erosion of Congress’s constitutional authority over war. The Constitution grants Congress — not the president — the power to declare war. Congress decides to go to war. The president wages it.
Over the past several decades, presidents of both major parties have increasingly treated military intervention as an executive prerogative rather than a congressional requirement.
The last six presidents have not reflected distinct foreign policy doctrines but a uniparty continuum of executive overreach. While the particulars differ, each administration has initiated or significantly expanded military action without a formal declaration of war or without clear evidence that the targeted country posed an imminent threat to the United States.
President George H.W. Bush assembled an international coalition following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Congress ultimately authorized the use of military force. However, it was not a defensive war; it fostered the growing post-Cold War assumption that the United States should act as the world’s policeman.
President Bill Clinton likewise employed military force without declarations of war. The 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Serbia during the Kosovo conflict proceeded despite Congress failing to authorize it in a clear and lasting manner. The …read more
Source:: Ron Paul Institute
