The missing elephant in the living room is the Constitution which public officials and citizens alike are obligated to uphold and defend. The Constitution —especially separation of powers—addresses process not policy. Separation is a structural bill of rights to arrest tyranny and the subjugation of the American people by pitting vaulting ambition against vaulting ambition. Our military engagement in Ukraine, i.e., co-belligerency against Russia which exposes us to a nuclear attack under international law, is alarming because Congress has never declared war as mandated by the Declare War Clause. It is Biden’s unconstitutional war pure and simple. It is no answer that Congress has appropriated funds for Ukraine. The power of the purse is no substitute for the Declare War Clause. If it were, the Clause would be superfluous, a throw away line contrary to all canons of constitutional construction. Specific language defeats the general.
Nothing in the Constitution or common sense dictates implacable opposition to anti-democratic forces. We allied with Stalin in World War II. We eagerly welcomed aid from King Louis XV in the Revolutionary War. We accepted Portugal into NATO when it was ruled by a malevolent dictator. We embraced Mao to oppose the Soviet Union.
The Constitution does not dictate any specific foreign policy. It dictates that Congress not the President shall decide between war and peace because of the irresistible temptation of the executive to fantasize justifications for belligerency or co-belligerency to aggrandize power. All history proves that gospel beyond a reasonable doubt. Congress has never declared war but in cases of actual or perceived foreign aggression against the United States, including Obama’s seeking a war declaration against Syria over alleged use of chemical weapons.
Any foreign policy that circumvents constitutional processes is a cure vastly worse than the disease. If the Declare War Clause can be arbitrarily abandoned, a precedent is set like a Sword of Damocles ready to destroy the entire Constitution based on a claim of an urgent need. Indeed, the United States has already plunged into that constitutional dystopia. The nation reacted like docile sheep to Trump’s harrowing July 23, 2019, extra-constitutional proclamation, “Then I have Article 2, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” Trump should have been immediately impeached and removed from office. Instead, Congress and the American people permitted him to employ a wrecking ball against the Constitution until leaving the White House.
We have met the enemy, and we are they. Everything else is a diversion.