Declaration Of War Analysis

The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the sole power to declare war. Congress has declared war eleven times since its first declaration of war with Great Britain in 1812. The last time that Congress formally declared war with another country or countries was during World War II. Since World War II Congress has authorized military force to bring about resolutions to conflicts around the globe and continues to use this policy to shape how our military interacts and oversees these actions without formally issuing declarations of war. Historically we have had good reasons for being overseas with our military forces, such as that of World War I and II. The constitution of the United States grants our congress the power to engage other countries in a test of military force when the wellbeing of helpless humans around the world are being threatened, such as England and France during World War I and the genocide of six million Jewish lives during the Holocaust of World War II. While it is documented that our last formal declaration of war …show more content…
would lose. Not only did our country lose support for this action from our own citizenry but also from that of the South Vietnamese who we were actively fighting for. The United States realized too late that they were not capable of winning the war because it wasn’t a military issue but a political one. In 1973, following the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, a debate emerged about the extent of presidential power in deploying troops without a formal declaration of war. A compromise in the debate was reached with the War Powers Resolution. This act clearly defined how many soldiers could be deployed by the President of the United States and for how long. It also required formal reports by the President to Congress regarding the status of such deployments, and limited the total amount of time that American forces could be deployed without a formal declaration of war. (Official Declarations of War,