Moar War: What Even Is It?

*A more basic question than “What is it good for?”.*

So, the U.S. being a country with laws but not really interested in operating by laws, there’s a problem in how the U.S. does “war”.

Other than all the killing civilians, and murder and such.

Those are called war crimes, but for the most part are just regular crimes in the U.S.; and not ones that get prosecuted much either.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

There’s also a problem in how the U.S. defines “war”.

It doesn’t; and that’s a problem.

This ambiguity has been the excuse for Presidents getting up to all kinds of hinky shenanigans that most people would see as involving acts of war like assassinating foreign political figures and training guerilla armies and such.

But as long as the President doesn’t call any of that stuff “war”, and they keep things on the down-low enough that Congress doesn’t have to cry “war” either, the U.S. has historically just let the President do whatever they want, with the occasional Congressional hearing and sacrificial Lieutenant Colonel getting prosecuted when things get too unseemly.

But there’s an even bigger problem lurking in there too.

Because the Constitution does say that only Congress can “declare war”; it’s really very clear about that.

So a reasonable reader of U.S. law would naturally conclude that the U.S. doesn’t do “war” without a vote in Congress first, but that is definitely not the case.

See, there’s another bit-that’s-not-actually-a-law called the War Powers Resolution that authorizes the President to do actual “war” whenever they want as long as they follow some notification rules and declare it over within 60 days, with a further 30-day period for putting things back where they were before it kicked off.

And that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.

As we’re seeing in Iran right now.

Because, since there’s no actual definition of “war” the regime is now claiming that the war has been wrapped up within that 60-day time limit since no one’s shooting at anyone else in this exact moment.

So, they say, the war is over under the deadline.

And any further shooting that crops up won’t be the same war.

Which is just obviously bad-faith sophistry.

But since Congress is not inclined to fight over anything with this President, all he needs is the tiniest of rhetorical fig leaves.

And this whole situation just makes a mockery of any pretense to the U.S. being a country of laws. Or of the law mattering at all here, really.

Basically, this is a whole mess of interwoven problems.

Untangling that mess and preventing this sort of thing from happening in the future will take a bunch of different solutions, all of which are necessary:

shorter terms and/or easier access to recall elections, to enable the citizens to force congressional representatives to actually stop an abuse of power when it happens
drop the rules of standing, to allow any citizen to sue to force the State to follow the law
make an actual definition of “war” that would cover any U.S. initiated use of force abroad
return to requiring Congressional approval for war
develop a cultural focus on requiring that the State follow its own laws
enact actual penalties against elected official who give these illegal orders and agents of the State who follow them

Most of that would actually help quite a lot with other problems the U.S. has with the State (and its controllers) acting in ways that are clearly illegal or lawless, but for which there is no way to actually enforce the laws they’re breaking.

Though I am not particularly hopeful that reforms like these could be implemented within the current United States; our track record is less than stellar lately.

But maybe keep them in mind for after.