{"id":41439,"date":"2026-01-04T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=41439"},"modified":"2026-01-09T19:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:00:08","slug":"i-wrote-a-book-on-the-politics-of-war-powers-and-trumps-attack-on-venezuela-reflects-congress-surrendering-its-decision-making-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/i-wrote-a-book-on-the-politics-of-war-powers-and-trumps-attack-on-venezuela-reflects-congress-surrendering-its-decision-making-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"I wrote a book on the politics of war powers, and Trump\u2019s attack on Venezuela reflects Congress surrendering its decision-making powers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sarah Burns<\/a>, Rochester Institute of Technology<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans woke up on Jan. 3, 2025, to blaring headlines: \u201cUS CAPTURES MADURO, TRUMP SAYS,\u201d declared The New York Times, using all capital letters. The U.S. had mounted an overnight military raid in Venezuela that immediately raised questions<\/a> of procedure and legality<\/a>. Prime among them was what role Congress had \u2013 or should have had \u2013 in the operation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed political scientist Sarah Burns<\/a>, author of the book \u201cThe Politics of War Powers<\/a>\u201d and an expert at Rochester Institute of Technology on the historical struggle between Congress and U.S. presidents over who has the power to authorize military action.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this a war?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wouldn\u2019t call it a war. This is regime change, and whether or not it has a positive impact on the United States, whether or not it has a positive impact on Venezuela, I think the likelihood is very low for both of those things being true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does Congress see its role in terms of military action initiated by the United States?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress has been<\/a>, in my view, incredibly supine<\/a>. But that\u2019s not just my word<\/a>. Having said that, it is true that Congress \u2013 in the House, predominantly \u2013 tried to pass a war powers act recently, saying that President Donald Trump was not allowed to do any action against Venezuela, and that failed on very close votes<\/a>. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GwJUUQMmPrE?wmode=transparent&start=0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you see some effort on the part of Congress to assert itself in the realm of war. But it failed predominantly on party lines, with Democrats saying we really don\u2019t want to go into Venezuela. We really don\u2019t want to have this action. Republicans predominantly were supporting the president and whatever it happens to be that he would like to do. Moderate Republicans and Republicans who are in less safe districts were and are more likely to at least stand up a little bit to the president, but there\u2019s a very small number of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Congress has been largely absent as President Donald Trump has escalated his verbal and military attacks on Venezuela. AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So there may be an institutional role for Congress, a constitutional role, a role that has been confirmed by legal opinion, but politics takes over in Congress when it comes to asserting its power in this realm?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a perfect way of putting it. They have a legal, constitutional, one might even say moral, responsibility to assert themselves as a branch, right? This is from Federalist 51 where James Madison says \u201cAmbition must be made to counteract ambition<\/a>.\u201d So it should be that as a branch, they assert themselves against the president and say, \u201cWe have a role here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1940s, presidential scholar Edward Corwin<\/a> said that in the realm of foreign policy, it is an invitation for Congress and the president to struggle. So it should be that Congress and the president are struggling against each other to assert, \u201cI\u2019m in charge.\u201d \u201cNo, I\u2019m in charge.\u201d \u201cNo, I\u2019m in charge,\u201d in an effort to create a balance between the two branches and between the two things that each of the branches does well. What you want from Congress is slow deliberation and a variety of opinions. What you want from the president is energy and dispatch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So certainly, if we have an attack like 9\/11, you would want the president to be able to act quickly. And you know, conversely, in situations like the questions around what the U.S. is doing in Venezuela, you want slow deliberation because there is no emergency that requires energy and dispatch and speed. So the president shouldn\u2019t be entirely in the driver\u2019s seat here, and Congress should very much be trying very hard to restrain him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What power does Congress have to restrain him?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have to pass legislation. They aren\u2019t particularly well suited right now to passing legislation<\/a>, so effectively there is not a very clear way for them to restrain the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things that members of Congress have attempted to do several times, with very little positive impact, is go to the courts and say, \u201cCan you restrain the president?\u201d And political scientist Jasmine Farrier<\/a> has written that the courts have regularly said to members of Congress: \u201cYou have the power to stop the president, and you are ineffective at that. And so if you want to stop the president, you shouldn\u2019t turn to us. You should work together to create legislation that would restrain the president.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would such legislation do? Cut off money for troops? Is it finger-wagging, or is it something really concrete?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a few different tiers. Joint resolutions are finger-wagging. They just say, \u201cBad, Mr. President, don\u2019t do that.\u201d But they have no effect in law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The War Powers Resolution<\/a>, first passed in 1973, is a legitimate way of trying to restrain the president. Congress intended to say to presidents, \u201cYou cannot start a war and continue a war without our authorization.\u201d But what they said instead was \u201cYou could have a small war or a short war \u2013 of 60 to 90 days \u2013 without our authorization, and then you have to tell us about it.\u201d That just sort of said to presidents the opposite of what they intended. So President Barack Obama took advantage of that with the military engagement in Libya<\/a>, as well as Trump in his first administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not a partisan issue. It\u2019s not Republican presidents who do it. It\u2019s not Democratic presidents who do it. It\u2019s every president since the War Powers Resolution was passed, and the only time that Congress has drawn down troops or drawn down money was the Vietnam War<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other than that disastrous war, we have not seen Congress willing to put themselves on the politically negative side, which is taking money away from the troops. Because if you take away money right now, they\u2019re going to be harmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a
President Donald Trump and his national security team discuss the U.S. strikes on Venezuela at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Jan. 3, 2026. AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What is the War Powers Resolution?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The War Powers Resolution from 1973<\/a>, also known as the War Powers Act, was Congress \u2013 during the Vietnam War \u2013 saying definitively to President Richard Nixon, \u201cYou have overstepped your bounds.\u201d They had explicitly said in law, you cannot go into Cambodia. And Nixon went into Cambodia<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that was their way of trying to reassert themselves very aggressively; as I mentioned before, it didn\u2019t work effectively. It worked insofar as presidents don\u2019t unilaterally start wars that are large scale, the way that World War II was large scale. But they do have these smaller actions at varying levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we get to 9\/11 and we see the 2001 authorization for the use of military force<\/a>, and the 2002 authorization for the use of military force<\/a>. The 2001 law authorized going after anyone in al-Qaida and associated with 9\/11. The 2002 authorization was directly related to Iraq, saying \u201cThere is a problem with Iraq, we have to do something.\u201d Both of them were extremely vague and broad, and that\u2019s why we\u2019ve seen four presidents, including Trump, using the 2001 and 2002 authorizations to carry out all sorts of operations that had very little to do with Saddam Hussein or al-Qaida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, senators Mike Lee, Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy collectively got together and tried to create a national security document that would restrain presidential unilateralism<\/a>. It was a good effort on the part of members of Congress from a variety of different ideological views to attempt to restrain the president. It did not even sort-of pass \u2013 it barely got out on the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that time, we haven\u2019t seen a lot of efforts from members of Congress. They haven\u2019t really reasserted themselves since the war in Korea, which began in 1950. It\u2019s very clear that ambition is no longer checking ambition the way that it was meant to by the founders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you woke up this morning and saw the news, what was your first thought?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here we go again. This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. Lots of presidents have made this error, which is that they think if you do this smaller-scale action, you are going to get a positive result for the nation, for the region, for international stability. And very rarely is that the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah Burns<\/a>, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of Technology<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Burns, Rochester Institute of Technology Americans woke up on Jan. 3, 2025, to blaring headlines: \u201cUS CAPTURES MADURO, TRUMP SAYS,\u201d declared The New York Times, using all capital letters. The U.S. had mounted an overnight military raid in Venezuela that immediately raised questions of procedure and legality. Prime among them was what role Congress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":41440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8025,46,295,10,47,296,36,4,38],"tags":[17337,771,479,7209,885,891,886,860,17013,770,1797,686,16142,3236,2811,16569,17336],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41439"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41488,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41439\/revisions\/41488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}