How America Learned to Wage War Without Permission
"The moral hazard posed by a government no longer constrained by our Constitution is a grave threat." - Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, 2026
The moral hazard posed by a government no longer constrained by our Constitution is a grave threat.
Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, 2026
212-219.
Seven votes. That’s the margin by which the House declined to assert its constitutional war powers. In a mostly party-line vote, almost every Republican voted to allow Donald Trump to continue waging an illegal war. Conversely, almost every Democrat voted against it. And on the House floor, a Republican congressman, West Point graduate, and Army veteran named Warren Davidson said to his colleagues, “The moral hazard posed by a government no longer constrained by our Constitution is a grave threat.”
But the 219 Republicans still opted – just the latest in a series of similar inaction – to further abdicate their Constitutionally-granted powers to a rogue executive.
Davidson didn’t even argue that the strikes were wrong. He explicitly called out Iran as an enemy of the United States of America. His argument, like mine, is that the mechanism matters regardless of whether or not you agree with the action. If you continually allow a government to wage war without permission, it won’t be long before it wages war without reason.
Only one of Davidson’s fellow Republicans agreed with him (or at least had the courage to agree with him publicly). That Republican was Thomas Massie. The other 99% of their colleagues voted to look the other way.
To understand what Davidson was defending, you have to see what was supposed to exist.
What Was Supposed to Exist
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and George Mason – three of America’s founding fathers – agreed on almost nothing. What they did agree on, however, is that the power to initiate war belongs to Congress and Congress alone. Their reasoning was that in the hands of a unitary executive, said executive will always have or find the motive to start one.
Madison plainly said, “The Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.” Even Hamilton, who was arguably among the most pro-executive founders, wrote that “the legislature alone” can “place the nation in a state of war.”
At the Constitutional Convention, the change from “make war” to “declare war” passed with only one state dissenting. The president could repel sudden attacks. All else required Congress. Not a single prominent founding figure of the United States took the other side of this issue. And for roughly 150 years, the system worked as designed. Through the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and both World Wars.
Then it stopped.
Click by Click
Korea, 1950. Truman deployed troops while Congress headed for its July 4th recess and called it a “police action under the United Nations.” He said, “I just had to act as commander-in-chief, and I did.” Senator Robert Taft protested the move, calling it a “usurpation,” but ultimately said he’d vote for the force anyway. The Senate Democratic leader actually discouraged a vote because he feared “a lengthy debate.” So instead, Congress chose a vacation, and more than 36,000 Americans died in a war that was never voted on. Thus, the first click locked.
The Vietnam War was supposed to produce a fix. In the most aggressive assertion of congressional war authority since the founding, Congress actually overrode a presidential veto to pass the War Powers Resolution in 1973. And then...zero enforcements. Nearly every president since Nixon has rejected the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution. It has also never once forced a president to withdraw troops. It’s the equivalent of a speed limit sign on a highway the police never patrol (Fifty-two years and counting, by the way. Perfect record). That failure locked, too.
The 2001 AUMF, coming in at sixty words, passed 420-1 in the House a week after 9/11. Those sixty words have since been used to justify military operations in 22 countries against organizations that didn’t even exist when the vote was taken. That includes ISIS, a group that was literally at war with al-Qaeda. A blank check that never expires, yet another click locked. To be clear, I’m not making an argument for or against these military operations. My contention is, again, with the mechanism used to wage these wars.
Libya, 2011. President Barack Obama argued that launching cruise missiles at a sovereign nation didn’t constitute “hostilities” under War Powers Resolution. His Office of Legal Counsel disagreed, but he did it anyway. Locked.
Syria, 2017. Trump launched strikes and Congress barely noticed. Locked.
Iran, 2026. We’re teetering on the edge of full-scale war. No authorization, a party-line vote to continue it, and an executive that simultaneously calls it a war and claims it doesn’t need permission. Vice President JD Vance said, “We are not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.“ Speaker Mike Johnson said, “We’re not at war right now.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said, “The regime sure did change.” And President Trump himself said, “Why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???”
“Police action.” “Not hostilities.” “Not a war.” Each euphemism shrinks while the wars get bigger. Each new phrase insulates the next expansion from the constraints bounding the last one.
This mechanism is a ratchet. Each click locks the previous expansion in place. Reversal requires the dismantling of the device itself. And no one with power has any incentive to dismantle it.
Working as Intended
The ratchet isn’t solely the result of executive overreach. It’s just as much a product of congressional complicity.
Congress chooses not to exercise its war powers because strategic avoidance is politically rational for individual members. When a vote on war can end your political career, not voting in the first place is the obvious choice for politicians who treat their roles as aristocrats rather than public servants. The Harvard Journal on Legislation calls this the “power not to decide,” or a deliberate silence that lets legislators claim they neither authorized nor opposed whatever happens next. Their hands are clean, right?
So the president gets to benefit from the precedent, and Congress gets to benefit from their avoidance. Courts won’t intervene either, as they’ve consistently called war powers a “political question,” and their silence naturally gets interpreted as legal consent. Everyone inside the system has a reason to keep the ratchet turning, and that’s what makes the whole thing so durable.
Columbia’s Matthew Waxman argues that Congress exercises a sort of informal influence through appropriations, hearings, and political signaling. Historically, he’s right. His examples include Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. These are all cases where congressional pressure actually did constrain a president. But every one of those examples comes from an era when members of Congress were still willing to cross party lines on war. But when 99% of a caucus votes to continue an unauthorized war started by the president who represents their party, Waxman’s so-called informal checks simply evaporate.
The administration claimed that Iran’s progress toward nuclear enrichment were real, and that millions of lives were at stake. Even if that were true, that would be more of a reason to involve Congress, not less. An AUMF would have made the strikes more legitimate and harder to challenge. That’s not even a peacenik argument. It’s purely strategic. Even JINSA – known for being hawkish, pro-Israel, and supportive of the strikes in general – argued that Congress should pass an AUMF for Iran because that formal authorization would strengthen the mission.
So now the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day clock is ticking. It’ll expire in late April. When it does, however, it’s not like there’s any enforcement mechanism. Because no court will dare enforce it. Congress already voted against asserting its authority. They couldn’t even muster a majority for what was, in the end, a non-binding resolution. 62% of Americans want congressional approval for further military action. But instead, Congress voted not to require it.
The last nominal constraint on executive war-making is just weeks from expiring, but nobody is actually counting down.
A West Point graduate stood on the House floor, cited the Constitution, and lost to his own party by seven votes. Thus, the war continued. And the 60-day clock ticks toward a deadline no one will enforce.
The next time any president launches a strike on any country and for any reason, the constitutional mechanism designed to prevent it will perform exactly as it did on March 5th. A vote, a party line, and a shrug.
Just another click.