Except our congress has already delegated its powers to declare war by ratifying numerous treaties aka UN and a plethora of other tangled webs of legal speak. Only Five wars have been declared under the Constitution: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II At the end of WW II congress passed the United Nations Participation Act of 1945. This act essentially set precedence with the United States joining the newly created United Nations and related bodies of the United Nations. The UN Security Council is charged with maintaining peace and security among countries. While other organizations of the United Nations can only make 'recommendations' to member governments, the Security Council has the power to make binding decisions that member governments have agreed to carry out, under the terms of Charter Article 25. The decisions of the Council are known as United Nations Security Council resolutions. The Security Council is made up of 15 member states, consisting of 5 permanent membersâChina, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United Statesâand 10 non-permanent members, currently Azerbaijan, India, South Africa, Colombia, Morocco, Togo, Germany, Pakistan, Guatemala, and Portugal. The five permanent members hold veto power over substantive but not procedural resolutions allowing a permanent member to block adoption but not to block the debate of a resolution unacceptable to it. Congress can declare war but the declaration can be made void by veto by any of China, France, Russia, or United Kingdom.
I think he's a bit confused between UN and US war powers. Since we have UN veto powers. If we (US Congress ) declares war on cuba there isn't shit the UN can do about it officially. For example korea was not a US war but a UN security action. china f'ed up and decided to boycott the vote, you can bet they will never make that mistake again.
Under article 43 of the UNPA , the use of Armed forces is governed by the respective members constitutions. 3. The agreement or agreements shall be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council. They shall be concluded between the Security Council and Members or between the Security Council and groups of Members and shall be subject to ratification by the signatory states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. While this gets bent to hell for all such policing actions, our actual "deceleration of war" still resides with our Congress. As the above posts note this is in accordance with UN decelerations, We can wage war at our own discretion and thumb our nose at the UN if we like, however it's easier if we enlist other nations to offset costs.
Which can and has be interpreted and projected to mean almost anything, mostly by your liberal buddies.
I think the argument would be that if the US started a war that had not been approved by the UN or if had been specifically disapproved by the UN, then the US would be acting in violation of international law. While we could thumb our noses at that, violation of international law could have cosnequences, eg officials could be subject to arrest outside the US and prosecution.