Only Congress has the power to declare war according to Article 1, Section 8 of  the Constitution. In our more than 230 years there has been only five declared wars and each we decisively won — the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War¹, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.

Other military engagements have been authorized by Congress but not through a formal declaration of war. With the exception of both Barbary Wars in the early 1800s, most Congressionally-authorized but non-declared wars (or “conflicts”) took place after the 1950s — the Vietnam Conflict, the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War being prime examples. Additionally, several notable military engagements were never authorized by Congress but were initiated instead by presidential action following United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolutions — the Korean War, the Bosnian War, and peacekeeping operations in Haiti and Liberia. Again, for the record, please note that these UN military actions were never expressly authorized by Congress.

According to a September 25, 2001 Memorandum Opinion for the Deputy Counsel to the President and entitled “The President’s Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them,” there have been at least 125 occasions where the President has initiated military intervention “without prior express authorization from Congress” (and that total only counts those occurring before 2001). According to this document, the largest action was the Korean War:

Perhaps the most significant deployment without specific statutory authorization took place at the time of the Korean War, when President Truman, without prior authorization from Congress, deployed United States troops in a war that lasted for over three years and caused over 142,000 American casualties.

Similarly, the Bosnian War did not receive explicit congressional authorization. It was, as the Memorandum Opinion explains, a “unilateral deployment . . . [that] constituted full-scale war. On March 24, 1999, without any prior statutory authorization and in the absence of an attack on the United States, President Clinton ordered hostilities to be initiated against the Republic of Yugoslavia.” Like the Korean War, that military campaign was substantial as is noted within the Memorandum Opinion (which uses the word war):

Bombing attacks against targets in both Kosovo and Serbia ended on June 10, 1999, seventy-nine days after the war began. More than 30,000 United States military personnel participated in the operations; some 800 U.S. aircraft flew more than 20,000 sorties; more than 23,000 bombs and missiles were used.

While several wars received some form of congressional approval, the Korean and Bosnian Wars never received any express congressional authorization. In light of these and similar military interventions, does it really matter whether Congress, the President, or even the UN formally commits our troops and resources to war? Is there a difference between authorizing and declaring war?

To answer this question we must look to the Constitution which states how our nation can be committed to war. Jacob G. Hornberger, founder of The Future of Freedom Foundation, addresses this question in his 2002 article entitled “Declaring and Waging War: The U.S. Constitution.” He writes:

What does our Constitution say about war? Our Founders divided war into two separate powers: Congress was given the power to declare war and the president was given the power to wage war. What that means is that under our system of government, the president cannot legally wage war against another nation in the absence of a declaration of war against that nation from Congress.

A literal reading of the Constitution makes it clear that the Korean and Bosnian Wars amounted to bold, unconstitutional power-grabs by Presidents Truman and Clinton. But what about other wars like the Gulf War and the Iraq War? Didn’t both Presidents Bush received Congressional authorization to wage those wars? Wasn’t gaining that approval far better than the unauthorized actions of Presidents Truman and Clinton? Again, Hornberger offers a constitutional answer. He points out that “the fact that later presidents have violated the declaration-of-war requirement does not operate as a grant of power for other presidents to do the same.”

Specifically addressing the authorization for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, Hornberger writes:

What about the congressional resolution that granted President Bush the power to wage war against unnamed nations and organizations that the president determines were linked to the September 11 attacks? Doesn’t that constitute a congressional declaration of war? No, it is instead a congressional grant to the president of Caesar-like powers to wage war, a grant that the Constitution does not authorize Congress to make.

Simply put, there was no declaration of war and so military actions taken by the President were unconstitutional. Hornberger concludes that the consequences of supporting such unconstitutional military campaigns are extremely dangerous for our liberty:

Therefore, when a U.S. president wages what might otherwise be considered a just war, if he has failed to secure a congressional declaration of war, he is waging an illegal war — illegal from the standpoint of our own legal and governmental system. And when the American people support any such war, no matter how just and right they believe it is, they are standing not only against their own principles and heritage, not only against their own system of government and laws, but also against the only barrier standing between them and the tyranny of their own government — the Constitution.

Nine years after Congress gave President George W. Bush an almost blank check to use force against terrorists we are still waging war in Afghanistan. Instead of wrapping things up, it seems that the Bush and now Obama administrations actively expanded the scope of this war into other territories. Now hardly a day passes that we don’t learn of new military actions taking place within Pakistan and other sovereign nations. Why is this war dragging on and expanding?

Could it be that our Founders intended for war to be infrequent because declarations of war are difficult to pass? Could it be they knew that it was foolish to give any President an open-ended “authorization” to simply wage war? Could it be they knew that a formally declared war, as opposed to a vague authorization to use force, would be carefully debated, clearly defined, and then quickly and decisively won?

Contrast our five declared wars with the at least 125 military campaigns initiated by Presidents without prior Congressional authorization. While all five declared wars ended decisively and in most cases quickly, a high percentage of all others have ended poorly at best — with some slogging on to this day. Put another way, most military actions merely authorized by Congress (but not constituting a constitutional declaration of war) have had a dubious outcome.

After 60 years of waging ambiguous and undeclared wars on multiple fronts, Congress is long overdue in reclaiming their rightful authority under the Constitution. Regarding our current war and multiple military incursions, it is time for Congress to revoke all unconstitutional authorizations of force, thoroughly debate each situation, and take a simple up or down vote to declare war. If military action is warranted then Congress should own up to the need and declare war (and the President should then quickly win it). If no declaration of war is merited then our government should cease all military actions within that sovereign nation and bring our troops home. We cannot allow the Constitution to be violated any longer. If we fail to act now and end this unconstitutional abuse then our personal liberty may be the next victim under a President wielding Caesar-like powers.

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¹While not officially declaring war, Congress formally recognized that a state of war existed. However, in 1848 the House of Representatives censured President Polk for “unnecessarily and unconstitutionally” provoking this war with Mexico.

Image credit: jscreationzs

In the above video, Dr. Mark Thornton presents an informal lecture entitled “350 Years of Economic Theory in 50 Minutes” to a group home school students and parents. Dr. Thornton, Senior Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, is the Book Review Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. Dr. Thornton also served as the editor of the Austrian Economics Newsletter and as a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Libertarian Studies.

In much of the first 5 minutes, Dr. Thornton provides a quick overview to the topics that he will cover and introduces the Austrian  School of Economics (free market economy) vs. what he calls the statists (including Marxists, socialists, communists, Keynesians, fascists, mercantilists, interventionists, and so forth). He points out that the market economy is not only efficient but “a just system” that is the champion of  “individual liberty, private property, and honest money.”

Using the Biblical David and Goliath analogy, Dr. Thornton compares Austrian economists to David and statists economists to Goliath in the amount of control they have within American society. Dr. Thornton then spends a few minutes sharing his “personal journey through Austrian economics” and how he ended up at Auburn University in 1982 for a graduate program. He recounts a year of discouragement when it seemed that Austrian economics was a “thing of the past.” He then learned that the Ludwig von Mises Institute was coming to Auburn University and he was offered a fellowship to continue his studies in Austrian economics.

After almost 12 and a half minutes, Dr. Thornton begins his formal part of the lecture. Some of the subjects covered include the following:

• How behavior changes due to public policy decisions.
• The impact of higher taxes.
• Indirect and long-run effects of the “minimum wage” — especially job losses for the most needy.
• “Everything the government attempts to do ultimately backfires” — examples are provided.
• The purchasing power difference between “honest money” backed by gold and silver and our current monetary system.
• How “fiat” paper currency can become worthless due to monetary inflation.
• Prices for market-driven goods tends to go down while highly-regulated and taxed items tend to increase.
• Paper money inflation has been institutionalized since the Federal Reserve (the Fed) was created.
• Our highly-leveraged banking system — the fractional reserve banking system — means there is “basically no money in the bank.” Most reserves are in electronic format with the Federal Reserve itself.
• The modern form of inflation is an electronic form of inflation. The Fed buys government bonds from banks and then tell the bank they have reserves for them at the Fed. That is how the Fed electronically creates money and writes it into existence.
• “Monetary inflation at the Fed causes price inflation.”
• “Inflation secretly redistributes money from some groups of people to other groups of people.” Some people are hurt and some are helped by inflation. If you are the first to receive the newly inflated money you benefit before prices increase but if you are on the late end you are stuck with less purchasing power and higher prices.
• Government is the biggest beneficiary of inflation because the trillions in government debt are easier to pay off with inflated dollars.
• “Monetary inflation causes the booms and busts of the business cycle.” Fed-lowered interest rates (i.e. increased money supply) cause a boom which misallocates a lot of things in the economy that have to be adjusted — during the bust — through bankruptcies and unemployment caused by bad investments.

After about 40 minutes Dr. Thornton takes some questions (most are difficult to hear). One interesting historic reference Dr. Thornton makes is that the Federal Reserve tripled the money supply between 1914 to 1929. This period of increase was well before the Great Depression. This massive change did not represent a market economy move for the United States but was instead part of the “Progressive Era” leading to the Great Depression.

There was also a question about changes to the tax code. Dr. Thornton suggests that taxes should be pushed downward and some eliminated outright. He argues that people should never let the government institute a new tax. He also believes that the free market economy, while not perfect, is a superior way to continually improve what human beings can do in the absence of government intervention.

In conclusion, this informal presentation by Dr. Mark Thornton, while light on economic theory, provides a wealth of insight into inflation and other problems caused by government economic interventions. It builds a strong case for replacing our federally regulated economy and fiat money supply with free market solutions.