Bob Schaffer: “the question of whether we are at war or had to declare it, and so on, is one that now is going to be resolved in the…”

“the question of whether we are at war or had to declare it, and so on, is one that now is going to be resolved in the courts. This is a question that has been at the center of the relationship between this Congress and the presidency for a great number of years, and it has been a point of dispute for quite a long time. And each military incursion that we have undertaken as a country seems to take one more step or one more bite out of that constitutional responsibility that the Congress has to declare war, and there are various reasons that that is so. With respect to NATO or U.N. operations over the years, we have granted huge amounts of authority to the President to act unilaterally within the context of our relationship to the NATO treaty or U.N. charters. When it comes to peace agreements that disintegrate and erode, it is our relationship and response to these agreements, the fact that we have formally taken part as signatories to these agreements, that compels us and authorizes Presidents to step into war. Even under those circumstances, constitutional authority to declare war has been questionable. But this case is different altogether. It is different because we are talking now about a sovereign nation, a nation that did not act as an aggressor to a neighbor or some other jurisdiction around the world. We are talking about a conflict that does not involve an attack upon any of our NATO partners.…”