Talk:Declaration of war by the United States

message: I will do my part at our local pizza place by leaving the parmesan shaker top perched precariously on top of the cheese container. ~Semper Fi~  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.119.18 (talk) 22:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: It is written as if The Civil War was wrong based on the idea that it was illegal, I dont know if this person knows anything about the Constitution, since they say all the points making it an illegal war are based on the Constitution. Especially that no new states may be formed without approval from Congress, and all powers not given to the Federal Government are given to the State; gives them the right to secede. Whoever wrote this article please put some references, and rewrite it making it clearer, or just delete the whole section or maybe most of the whole article as its one of the worst I've seen on Wikipedia, especially since it just has to do with how, when and why we've declared war.
--KC-W (talk) 19:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Who Wrote The Civil War Paragraph

message: "Extremely heated debate developed in the United States beginning on or around September 11, 2001. Opponents of the uses of military force since began to argue, chiefly, that the Iraq War was unconstitutional, because it lacked a clear declaration of war, and was waged over the objection of a significantly sized demographic in the United States."
This paragraph seems to imply that the Iraq War is directly connected to 9/11.68.238.4.77 03:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The two events are obviously related. Removed the "verification needed" tag. This opinion from the USDOJ, , is in large part a response to the "heated debate" subsequent to 9/11 regarding presidential authority to conduct military actions absent formal declarations of war. Azi Like a Fox 00:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Misleading paragraph?

message: I don't think the House vote for declaration of war against Japan in 1941 was indeed unanimous. Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin voted against it, according to both my memory and the article about her. I would change it, but I'm not sure how many members of the House of Representitives there were in 1941. Kairos 04:18, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, in both the "December 7, 1917, HR: 365-1" and  "December 8, 1941, HR: 388-1" votes, the "1" was Jeannette Rankin -- maybe that could be mentioned in the article... AnonMoos 01:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jeanette Rankin

message: Yesterday I made a few minor edits so that military conflicts were refered to not by their military operation names (i.e. Operation Just Cause) but by their colloquial names.  I retained the operation names as an a.k.a.
Today Copperchair changed "Invasion of Afghanistan a.k.a. Operation Enduring Freedom" to "War on Terrorism a.k.a. Operation Enduring Freedom."  I have reverted the change but post here because I'm not sure if this will be controversial due to the political overtones.
My justification for the revert is that War on Terrorism is generally understood to refer to a global campaign not confined to any particular conflict or country.  It's a "meta" term not unlike the "War on Crime" or "War on Cancer."  I reverted for reasons of clarity.
I also wonder whether the operation names should be included at all.
68.174.9.162 19:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  War on Terrorism 

message: I quote:
:It should also be pointed out that the Second Gulf War should really not be considered separate from the first Gulf War. Saddam Hussein signed a Cease Fire Agreement on April 4th, 1991 that halted military action. He then proceeded over the next 12 years to violate 17 U.N. resolutions, including that Cease Fire Agreement. Therefore the so called "Second Gulf War" is, in reality, a RESUMPTION of the FIRST Gulf War based on Saddam Hussein vacating the agreement.
I believe this to be a NPOV statement, and in fact biased for the current conflict in Iraq.  Perhaps it should be reworded to read something like "One argument supporting the current conflict in Iraq is…" or something like that. --Micahbrwn 17:24, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It also seems to ignore the conventions for naming conflicts. For example, the 1st and 2nd Barbary wars. really I don't see how it is relative to this article. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 18:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: War Powers Resolution

message: Is there a NPOV objective distinction between a "Declaration of War" and a "Military engagement authorized by Congress"? I'm worried it may merely be an attempt by critics of the USA's foreign policy to portray the .Andjam 05:22, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, Congress seems to think there is an objective distinction, since they went to the trouble of actually declaring war in some cases and not in others. "Military engagement authorized by Congress" is pretty bland wording, it's hard for me to see how it could POV. I mean, what else should we call it? They objectively are not a declarations of war, to call them such would be inaccurate. Spaltavian 08:19, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The appropriate term should be "statutory authorization", which is the word embodied in the Article 2(c)(2) of the 1973 War Powers Resolution. LordKadghar 19:57, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Declaration of war vs "Military engagements authorized by Congress" 

message: The page has some serious formatting problems.  The article as it currently stands has the words "Headline text" and other meta-information strewn across the top of the table.  I'm not familiar enough with wiki markup to fix it.
I restored the page to a previous version.--81.83.223.152 15:32, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting problems 

message: No mention in this article is made of the US's participation in the air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, aka Operation Allied Force.  Was there a Congressional authorization under the War Powers Act for this action?  I do recall that a Congressman with ethnic roots in the region (was it Kucinich?) called for a formal declaration of war against Serbia so as to place the conflict more firmly under international norms and law. 
Also, what exactly is the NPOV dispute over the "The War Powers Resolution" section?  There doesn't seem to be any discussion of it here. --Jfruh (talk) 19:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Operation Allied Force]]?  And NPOV

message: I'm pretty sure Congress never gave authority to Pres. George H.W. Bush for the use of force in Panama.  I just weeded through every House of Reps. resolution related to American use of force abroad and the only thing they ever issued out of committee was a declaration of sorrow for the loss of American life and commendation to the President for an expressed goal to bring the troops home soon.  If somebody could fix the article that would be great.  unsigned
*Put a link to House of Reps. resolutions here.--Patchouli 01:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invasion of Panama  

message: Any reason NOT to mention what the U.S. Constitution has to say on the subject (Article 1 Section 8)? I don't want to start a war over this, but the Constitution is pretty important rewinn 05:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Constitution

message: I couldn't find anything to support the assertion that the USA declared war against Pancho Villa as an individual. It's not included in the tables listing declared or undeclared wars. Nor is it included in the article on Pancho Villa, or the Pancho Villa Expedition. I didn't find any article on the (relevant) Border War. This makes me seriously question the completeness of those tables. --Booch 21:00, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Border War / Pancho Villa

message: Is there a citation for this assertion? 165.124.253.153 20:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed, as no one provided a citation even after a fact tag was in place for more than three months.  --Brouhaha (talk) 22:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: After World War II, Congress voluntarily limited its use of the power to declare war to issuing authorizations of force.

message: "The Korean War was not a war authorized by the U.S. Congress. President Harry S. Truman cited authority under United Nations resolutions."
If Congress didn't 'authorize' it in some way where did Truman get the money? Misleading choice of words. 
Don't you find it a bit odd that we have prominent mention of the intervention in the Bolshevik Revolution, an incredibly minor skimish in Paraquay, a note on the fight with the Apache's being quite long but we have no mention whatsoever of The Amevican Civil War?
I don't think "There are many undeclared "wars" missing from this list. The United States fought in Korea in 1870 and in Nicaragua in 1927." quite covers it. 
And it would be a bit of a stretch to say Congress didn't 'authorize' it, although there was certain no DOW from the Fedearal Congress. But to mention Paraquay and leave out the Civil War (not to mention the American Revolution and the Phillipine Insurrection) leaves me speechless.  
Ks28 22:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? 

message: Japan attacked on the 7th and then sent a declaration of war.  Had the US received it when they declared war in turn?  Does US law require it when the enemy has already made a declaration of war?
Likewise on the 11th, was it Nazi Germany that declared war first?  It seems to have been the same day, but what was the sequence?
--GwydionM 20:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now confirmed - the other side started it.  --GwydionM 18:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know if it is required, but traditionally each nation makes its own declaration. a declaration doesn't start a war, just makes it official. There have been plenty of cases where one nation has attacked another, and the result is not war. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 17:22, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

text: the japense WERE going to declare war before pearl harbor but some delay caused the declaration to be announced after the bombing  Realfakebezalbob (talk) 21:20, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  World War Two - who declared war first? 

message: Why is the largest war in US histoy not included on the list of (undeclared) wars? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Frissell (talk • contribs) 15:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The War Between the States? 

message: Since no one objected and this article is a objective as most on Wiki, I'm removing the tag. --Calan 05:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing NPOV tag 

message: Where would the American Civil War fit in here? Ripberger 01:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the US Congress never declared war on the Conferency in large part because it was felt that such a declaration would give legitmacy to the Confederate govt. It also would have been virtually unheard of C. 1860 to declare war on a seperatist goverment; the norm at the time would have been to just send the troops in to (attempt to) put the revolt down. Jon 16:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: American Civil War

message: Would this article be the place to mention U.S. presidential or congressional initiatives to which their authors applied the word "war" to?  There's an article on Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and Richard Nixon's War on Drugs, for example, and perhaps other "wars" as well. patsw 18:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  War on Poverty, War on Drugs, etc. 

message: First paragraph needs to be cleaned up . It is too biased with too many legalisms and opinion mixed in with fact. The definition should be stated clearly first and then any debate should remane further down the article. Or it is just too confuisng.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.56.63.110 (talk) 08:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing first paragraph 

message: It's noted that an argument could be made that the US twice declared war on Hungary. This argument is VERY valid, as Austria-Hungary was a personal union and dual monarchy. "It is not to be confused with a federation, which internationally is considered as a single state." The two states were both sovereign, but sharing a head of state. They are essentially two separate states.  I would support changing those few sentences for these reasons. Grsz11 23:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hungary

message: This page might work better if it had one big table that incorporated all U.S. military actions, whether there was a specific declaration of war, whether there was a congressional authorization of military force, or whether there was not declaration or congressional authorization. There's a good list of U.S. military actions here.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 23:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: One big table

message: I removed Operation Just Cause from the list of authorized operations because I read that the operation was not authorized before or during the operation itself and I was not able to find any post-fact authorization. I could be wrong. If someone knows better and you know where Congress authorized the operation I invite the revert.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 23:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Operation Just Cause

message: May I suggest that those who are at work on this page have a look at the very useful book by Brien Hallett, The Lost Art of Declaring War (1998, Uni. of Illinois Press)?  Someone who had examined Hallett would be able to clarify  the sections on the ‘Controversy’ and the ‘Current status of the US debate’. --M.H. d. Ä.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.241.10.4 (talk) 03:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Lost Art of Declaring War --DThomsen8 (talk) 18:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: A Useful Reference on this Topic

message: There appears to be a conflict between this and another article. The question is whether or not a formal declaration of war requires the President to approve of it. I know that there are pictures of FDR signing declarations of war against Japan and Germany, but was he required to do so? The Resolution (law) article says that Congress can declare war through a joint resolution which seems to imply that Presidential approval is not required. This article specifically, does not say either way. So which is it? Andy120290 (talk) 01:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how this has worked in the real world but, the US Const. Art. 1 Sec. 7 reads in part, "Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill." 76.99.142.49 (talk) 04:59, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Presidential Signature? 

message: From Wikipedia, First Barbary War#Declaration of war and naval blockade:
Consequently, in May 1801, the Pasha declared war on the United States, not through any formal written documents but by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate.
In response, Jefferson sent a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress. Although Congress never voted on a formal declaration of war, they did authorize the President to instruct the commanders of armed vessels of the United States to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli "and also to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will justify."
This was certainly an informal way for the Pasha to declare war, and Congress responded to authorize fighting, but legally, was this an early, if not the first time the United States of America fought a war without declaring it? Some people seem to think this was a modern development, but maybe not.  --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pasha informally declares war, May, 1801.  

message: Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States#Formal
The chart displaying formalized declaration of war by the USA previously showed the U.S. Congress as having declared was on Germany & Italy on December 11th, 1941.  That is an error; 12/11/41 is the date Germany declared war on the USA (not sure when Italy so declared).  The U.S. Congress actually issued formal declarations of war against Germany on January 10, and Italy on January 12 (1942).
Unfortunately, I was not familiar with the somewhat esoteric format of the display chart, hence the date for U.S. Declaration of War upon Italy is shifted one column farther to the right than it should be (thus pushing all the rest of the Italy-related data one column over to the right in turn).  If someone better versed in the technical rigours of that charting code would be so helpful as to fix my (undoubtedly minor) error, that would be ideal. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 11:18, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/germwar.shtml, this http://johnshadegg.house.gov/RSC/DeclarationofWar.PDF, and this http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-10-08-congress-war.htm all indicate the declarations of war against Germany and Italy occurred on December 11, 1941. Unless you have another source that disproves these, the December 11 date stands. Andy120290 (talk) 20:11, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: In point of fact, my 1959 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia does state quite definitively that the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany on January 10th, 1942, and on the Kingdom of Italy on January 12th, 1942.  But I will endeavour to locate a readily verifiable online source (albeit probably not tonight) before I seek to change those dates again. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 12:06, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correct dates for U.S. Declarations against Germany & Italy 

message: The Miller Center of Public Affairs, of the University of Virginia, would seem to claim that the Congressional authorization of military action against the then city-state of Algiers, constituted a formal declaration of war.  The relevant text is as follows: "May 10, 1815
With Madison having secured a declaration of war on Algiers, Captain Stephen Decatur leads a flotilla from New York against the Mediterranean pirates, who attack American ships during the War of 1812. Algiers surrenders on June 30."
http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/keyevents/madison
Do we have a reliable source, or sources, which definitively claim otherwise?
:I am not familiar with the conflict with Algiers, but it is not uncommon for sources, such as books and what-not, to use the phrase "declare war" and the like even when a formal war declaration was not passed. For example, I have heard some variant on the phrase "President Bush declared war on Iraq" even thought there was no formal war declaration. Most likely, whoever wrote the web page was not familiar with the technical definition of a war declaration. You can be sure that all formal war declarations are listed in the article. If there was another good source, the Algiers conflict might go into the "Military engagements authorized by Congress" section. Andy120290 (talk) 20:12, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The conflict itself is already listed in the article; its merely a question of whether it is being presented in the appropriate table. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 02:31, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Declaration of War," or otherwise, against Algiers on May 10, 1815 

message: The end of the Korean War was accomplished by the legal, binding document called the Korean Armistice Agreement.  Wikisource link now provided in the article.  Also see Armistice for info (and discussion) as to the legal effects of an armistice.  Any info regarding the aftermath of the Korean War vis-a-vis a peace treaty is off-topic and should be avoided.  Besides, the PRC Army was a signatory to the Armistice -- if there is no peace treaty in Korea, does that mean that a "state of war" continues with China?  Hardly. Any arguments that say the Korean War continues is POV notwithstanding recent skirmishes and attacks, etc. --S. Rich (talk) 18:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Korean War conclusion 

message: Hi. I wanted to point out a discrepency bettween this paragraph  and this list . Operation Enduring Freedom was not per se sanctioned by the UN according to the former, whereas the UN Resolutions sanction by article 51 a memberstate's righ to defend itself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chilocus (talk • contribs) 04:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Operation Enduring Freedom was not sanctioned by the Security Counsel 

message: what is the role of congress in the approving UN security council resolutions? 98.206.155.53 (talk) 17:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I would recommend asking that at the Wikipedia reference desk. Kansan (talk) 22:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  UN approval 

message: could the insurrection act be relevant? I noticed this article mentions the American civil war, but not other internal conflicts that the government was a part of. Although the Civil War seems to be the only one where rebels were given belligerent status. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 18:13, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  insurrection act 

message: I've been hearing various things about whether the U.S. is actually in a state of war with ISIL. Should we add this to the page, or wait until we have a conclusive answer? Jontiben (talk) 23:11, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  ISIL 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The lead contains
The  tag there is dated April 2010.
That assertion may have been sourced from the description seen on Google Books for this book (" Many have postulated 'Declaration(s) of War' must contain that phrase as or within the title. Many oppose that reasoning." -- click More there to see that). I'm not sure whether or not that assertion is repeated or expanded upon inside the book itself. Perhaps some editor who has access to the book can check that and, if so, attribute and support that assertion. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:50, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unattributed assertion in the lead 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Here, I've reverted the addition of "out of twelve" by an anon. The edit summary of the reverted edit led me to this article on the Portuguese Wikipedia, which does list twelve wars. That referred-to article corresponds to the List of the lengths of United States participation in wars article hee, which currently lists 25 wars. It looks me as if some reconcilliation, some clarification, and some supporting cites are needed. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:05, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert: five wars out of (however many)