How Republican presidents asked Congress for war powers from Formosa to Iraq

Quick quiz, and no peeking. How many times has Congress formally declared war? The answer is eleven, in five wars: the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, the First World War and the Second. (Count the Second World War as six declarations, against Japan, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, and the First World War as two.) Now count the times American forces have fought, been sent into danger, or been put into action since 1945. The second number is a great deal bigger than the first, and not one of those later actions came with a formal declaration.

That gap is the subject of a thousand cable arguments. One side says, "The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, and presidents have been ignoring it." The other says, "The President is commander in chief and does not need permission to defend the country." Folks, both are half right, which is why the argument never ends. The more useful question is not who is right in the abstract. It is what Republican presidents have actually done when the stakes were high. Some came to Congress and asked for a vote. Some did not. And the table below, which covers seventy years, shows a pattern in when they did and what they got.

The two sentences in the Constitution

Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power "To declare War," to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the military. Article II, Section 2 makes the President "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States." Between those two clauses lies a gray zone big enough to hide a war. For the founders' view, see Who Declares War? What the Founders Meant and Where We Drifted.

Two points to keep in mind. The first is a point of fact: a resolution authorizing force is not a declaration of war. It is a statute, passed by both chambers and signed by the President (or passed over his veto). It lets the President use force for particular purposes, in a particular place, and it can come with conditions. The second is a point of value: I think Congress is the right place to make this decision when the commitment will be long, costly or open-ended, and I think the President is the right person to act when speed matters and the action is brief. Keep that standard in your pocket, and measure each case by it.

The table

The 1950s: ask first, and ask big

Dwight Eisenhower was a five-star general who had commanded the Allied invasion of Europe, and he asked Congress for permission anyway. In January 1955, with a crisis building in the Taiwan Strait over some small islands held by the Nationalist Chinese, he sent Congress a request, and on January 29, 1955, he signed the Formosa Resolution. It authorized him to use the Armed Forces to protect Formosa and the Pescadores against armed attack, and to secure and protect related positions and territories that he judged essential to that defense. Congress passed it by overwhelming majorities in both chambers.

Two years later, on March 9, 1957, he signed the Middle East Resolution, often called the Eisenhower Doctrine. It authorized the use of American forces to assist any Middle Eastern nation that asked for help against armed aggression from a country controlled by international communism, and it set aside money for economic and military aid. When Lebanon's government asked for help in the summer of 1958, Eisenhower sent Marines, who landed on July 15, 1958, and the resolution and the Lebanese request together were cited as the basis.

Notice what Eisenhower was doing. He wanted to deter. A resolution passed in advance and in public tells an adversary that the whole country is behind the commitment, and so a bluff is less likely and a war is less likely. In the language of our piece Why Deterrence Is a Promise You Have to Be Willing to Keep, the vote is part of the threat. He also wanted to avoid the later complaint that he had gone to war on his own. And he left a precedent that his successors would cite, for good and ill.

The weak point of these resolutions is the same in both cases: the President decided when the emergency was over. That is a lot of discretion, and it came without a clock.

The 1960s and the lesson Congress drew

I need to step outside the Republican story for a moment, because the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of August 1964 was passed under a Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson, and it explains what happened next. It authorized the President to take "all necessary measures" in Southeast Asia and was used to justify a massive escalation in Vietnam. It passed with almost no dissent in a few days and was repealed years later. The lesson Congress drew was: never again write a blank check. That lesson is what produced the 1973 law.

1973: Nixon vetoes, Congress overrides

On October 24, 1973, Richard Nixon vetoed the War Powers Resolution, calling it unconstitutional. Congress overrode him on November 7. The law requires a President who commits forces to hostilities to report to Congress within 48 hours and to withdraw them within 60 days (with a 30-day extension for the withdrawal itself) unless Congress authorizes the action. Nixon and nearly every president since, of both parties, have said that parts of it infringe on the President's constitutional power. The story of that fight is told in Five vetoes Congress overrode and what each showed about presidential power and The War Powers Resolution Explained, and Why Presidents Resist It.

1983: Reagan, Lebanon and a vote with a clock

The Lebanon case is the best illustration of what can happen when Congress writes the terms. In 1982 and 1983, American Marines were part of a multinational force in Beirut. As the mission grew risky, the question was whether the 60-day clock under the 1973 law had begun. Rather than fight about it, Congress and the White House made a deal. On October 12, 1983, Reagan signed the Multinational Force in Lebanon Resolution. It authorized the Marines to stay for up to eighteen months, set conditions on their role, and recognized that the clock had in fact been triggered. Reagan signed it while saying that he did not concede that the 1973 law bound him.

Eleven days later, on October 23, 1983, a truck bomb destroyed the Marine barracks at Beirut airport and killed 241 American service members. The Marines were withdrawn from Lebanon in early 1984. Two days after the barracks bombing, on October 25, 1983, Reagan sent forces into Grenada, an operation he undertook without a vote, with a report to Congress afterward.

I don't want to draw too strong a lesson from the tragedy. The resolution did not cause the bombing, and the vote did not prevent it. What the episode shows is that a vote with a limit forces both branches to ask, at a defined point, whether the mission still makes sense. Eighteen months is not a magic number, but it is a clock, and a clock is more than the Formosa Resolution had.

1991: the cleanest case

The best example of how this is supposed to work came in the winter of 1990 and 1991. Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. George H. W. Bush built a coalition, and on November 29, 1990, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 678, authorizing member states to use "all necessary means" if Iraq did not withdraw by January 15, 1991. Bush and his defense secretary had said publicly that they believed they had the authority to act without a vote of Congress. Then Bush wrote to Congress on January 8, 1991, and asked for a resolution anyway.

Congress debated for days. On January 12, 1991, the Senate passed the authorization by 52 to 47, and the House by 250 to 183. Bush signed it on January 14. The resolution authorized force to enforce the UN resolutions and required the President to report that diplomacy had been exhausted before using it. The air campaign began on January 17, 1991.

Why did Bush ask when he said he did not have to? Because he wanted a mandate. A war the whole government has voted for is a war the troops can believe in, and he was about to send hundreds of thousands of them. He also wanted his Democratic critics on record. I find that admirable and wise, and the contrast with other cases is worth thinking about.

2001 and 2002: the open-ended votes

After September 11, 2001, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force within a week; it was signed on September 18, 2001. The vote was nearly unanimous. It authorizes the President to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against the nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the attacks, and against those who harbored them. It has no end date and does not name a country.

The Iraq authorization of 2002, signed on October 16, 2002, authorized the President to use the Armed Forces as he determined necessary to defend the United States against the threat posed by Iraq and to enforce the relevant UN resolutions. It also had no end date, though it required him to report to Congress.

Here, I believe, is where the conservative case for Article I has real force. These were votes taken in the shadow of an attack or a threat, with broad language and no sunset. The 2001 text has been the legal basis for operations in many places over the decades since, which its authors in 2001 could hardly have pictured. A statute with no end date and no named enemy is the kind of power that conservatives, who distrust unlimited power in any hands, should be wary of, even when a Republican holds the office.

And one more episode from the same family: on January 3, 2020, an American airstrike near Baghdad airport killed the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. The strike was ordered without a new authorization from Congress. Congress passed a war powers measure on Iran, and President Trump vetoed it on May 6, 2020. The argument over what the 2001 and 2002 statutes cover, and what Article II covers alone, is a live one, and nothing in this post should be read as settling it. For where things stand today, check Congress.gov.

The strongest objection and my answer

Here is the best argument against asking Congress. It runs: in a crisis, you cannot wait for 535 members to debate. An adversary who sees America hesitate will test it. A President who must ask permission tells the enemy what he fears. The founders gave the President the power of command precisely so that one will could act quickly.

That is a serious argument, and in the case of a sudden attack or a short, defensive action it is persuasive. The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and Presidents have always been able to repel a sudden attack.

My answer is in numbered points.

1. Short and sharp is different from long and open. The right to act first without a vote has the strongest claim when the action is brief and the objective limited. The case for a vote grows with the length and cost.
2. The votes have not been weakness. Eisenhower's and Bush's votes strengthened deterrence and the coalition.
3. Congress can be asked early. The Vandenberg resolution of 1948 described in Lodge in 1919 and Vandenberg in 1948 gave two Republican answers on treaties is the model: consult before the crisis, not after.
4. A clock forces a conversation. The Lebanon resolution's eighteen months was a feature, not a bug.
5. A vote is also a promise from Congress. A Congress that votes for a war owns it, and cannot later pretend it stood aside.

The bottom line

• Congress has declared war eleven times in five wars, but it has authorized force by resolution many more times, and Republican presidents have used both approaches: Eisenhower in 1955 and 1957, Reagan in 1983, George H. W. Bush in 1991, and George W. Bush in 2001 and 2002.
• A resolution with limits (a place, a purpose, a clock, a report) is better than one without. The Lebanon resolution had a clock. The 2001 and 2002 resolutions did not.
• The strongest case for acting alone is a brief, defensive action. The strongest case for a vote is a long, costly or open-ended commitment. Use that test on any president, of either party.
• Conservatives who believe in Article I should say so even when the President is a Republican. The principle does not change with the party.
• When a deployment is in the news, find the actual legal basis. Look it up on Congress.gov, read the operative section, and ask your representative whether Congress has voted on it.