The role of Congress in wartime scenarios has drawn more attention and scrutiny in the past 25 years, beginning with the claims of weapons of mass destruction that led to years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the current situation where strikes were fired at Iran by U.S. and Israeli forces without any legislative approval.
Federal law for decades has legally dictated how Congress not only has “the power of the purse” but also a say for American constituents of whether the nation should go to war. That second aspect was enshrined within the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which according to the long-held system of “checks and balances” provides a legislative fulcrum over the executive branch and forces congressional approval to commit U.S. Armed Forces into conflicts.
Such requirements involve the president notifying Congress within 48 hours of military action while prohibiting service members from being in a hostile warzone for more than 60 days. The law gets muddied, however, due to only Congress being able to declare war and appropriate military funding while the president remains the commander in chief.
When President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, Congress showed a lack of willingness to challenge the administration in a silence that, according to Kelley Vlahos, editor-in-chief at Responsible Statecraft, was “very regrettable but not unexpected.”
“I think we knew from the outset that it was going to be very difficult to bring Republicans on board for the vote,” Vlahos told Military.com. “We, of course, know that Rand Paul is a for-certain vote on constitutional matters. … There was some hope that it would get a few [more] over there."
But it's really regrettable because when you think about it, this is a vote to have a vote. And it does seem like, for the last 20 years or so, Congress has been pretty resigned to the executive taking on matters of war, including taking the country to war without putting their own skin in the game.
That’s what she described as particularly “disappointing” for Americans who are the constituents of those elected officials, not to mention the constitutional checks and balances under Article II.
“Obviously, the president has the authority to take the country to war when it's under imminent threat,” she said. “But we have seen time and time again presidents taking the country to war for much less, for very debatable reasons under that imminent threat clause.”
Democrats Side With GOP
The war powers resolution pushed by mainly Democrats in both the U.S. Senate and House met its anticipated fate, falling short by a 53-47 mostly party line vote in the Senate and by a 219-212 vote in the House. Only Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky joined Democrats.
In the House the day after, Democrats defected and dealt their party a major blow considering that if they would have stayed put the resolution would have passed after Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a sponsor, and Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, joined Democrats in the vote.
Those four Democrats were Reps. Greg Landsman of Ohio, Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, and Juan Vargas of California.
Bush, Obama and Trump
Vlahos said that the impulse to let the president take ownership of all things war has been in motion for many decades, but particularly after Sept. 11, 2001, even as Congress at that time gave President George W. Bush authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) in Afghanistan to go after Al-Qaeda.
“And then they gave a similar AUMF to Bush to go into the war in Iraq,” she said, “so there was buy-in on that."
Unfortunately, those AUMFs are still being used for any action, operation, war, conflict, whatever you want to call it, that presidents have wanted to pursue. They've just used those AMFs as justification, or sort of like authorization, for what they wanted to do.
That has been true through numerous operations, from Bush to Obama, through the first Trump administration and then during Joe Biden’s presidency. Increasingly, according to Vlahos, “Congress just sort of shrugs its shoulders” or engages in purely partisan efforts to support whichever party’s president is in power.
“Trump comes in his second term and takes the reins,” Vlahos said. “He says, ‘Listen, you've been ceding war powers to the executive for so many years. I'm just going to do what I want.’ He’s sort of ripped up any pretense of going to Congress or explaining to the American people what the strategy is. He just does it.”
Getting Lawmakers On Record
Vlahos said the partisanship of Washington lawmakers who are collectively elected by tens of millions of Americans is particularly “unfortunate” when individuals like Rep. Rand Paul, or Sen. Tim Kaine, make “full-throated arguments” for Congress to reinstall its own authority and have every member in each chamber on the record for posterity.
“There's this more long-term concern that if they vote for it and then it turns into another Iraq, they are forever on that record,” she added. “And some reporter 20 years from now, is going to say, ‘Hey, did Congressman Smith actually vote for this?
“‘Oh, yeah. We made some statements along the way, even though the rest of the world knows it was a big fat failure.’ So, I think that there's a concern there, but that's no reason to abrogate your duty as a member of Congress.”
The war powers resolution is not a sign but merely another symptom of a more partisan Washington within the past 2-3 decades.
Votes can also be salvaged in other ways, Vlahos said, including potential votes on supplemental resolutions to authorize more U.S. dollars towards the overseas conflict. That would also put lawmakers on the record.
“Congress has ceded so much of its power and authority that they really don't know how to stop this administration from barreling into one war to another,” Vlahos said.
Americans' Objections to Current Conflict
Vlahos also alluded to polling, just about all of which has been quite negative towards the current administration.
“This is seemingly optimistic, but I hope that public opinion will turn so fiercely against this war that President Trump will have to acknowledge that and de-escalate or call for a ceasefire, do what he usually does, find some off-ramp where he can save face, just to stop the bloodshed—whether it be our guys or Iranians or others in the crosshairs, and just scale it back and end it,” she said.
G. Elliott Morris, a data journalist who authors Strength In Numbers on Substack, posted a table showing all U.S. polling on what is happening overseas. Surveys, asking respondents if they approved or disapproved of the strikes on Iran, were conducted between Feb. 28 and March 4.
In terms of approval percentage, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 27%. YouGov showed 37%, CNN showed 41%, and the Washington Post showed 39%.
Even the conservative-minded Fox News showed a straight 50-50 percentage split in approval/disapproval.
Bigger Budget = More Conflicts?
To further complicate U.S. foreign policy and the administrations’ future intentions, Trump has called to drastically increase the current U.S. defense budget that already sits at approximately $900 billion. That is expected to be a big talking point come budget talks for the next fiscal year.
A hypothetical $1.5 trillion defense budget could signal even more U.S. interventionism worldwide, not less, according to Vlahos.
She said more money doesn’t automatically lead to better readiness or improved policy; rather, it just adds more dollars in certain individuals’ and companies’ coffers and strategy is bred from finding ways to use such funds “because you’ve got to spend it.”
“Often, defense contractors are asking for more and the forces are asking for more,” she said. “And what better way than to say, 'There's a threat here and there's a threat there?' So, it's flip-flopped.
“And until we fix it, I'm afraid that there's always going to be a rush to war before diplomacy. We're going to be putting our military—our men and women who are serving us—in harm's way.”
