Has ISIS Declared War on France Tactical Investor

Has ISIS Declared War on France

Declaring war would certainly be cathartic, politically, for a nation that has lived in the shadow of Islamic jihadists since September 11, 2001. But such a declaration is a hammer that views the problem it wants to be solved as a nail. While military action is required to beat ISIS, it won’t be sufficient.

It’s worth noting that a President—even a President Trump—can’t declare war. The Constitution limits the power “to declare War” to Congress in its Article I, Section 8. It’s a power that has grown rusty from disuse: Congress has declared war only 11 times, most recently six times during World War II (separate declarations in 1941 and 1942 against Japan, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, see right).

Waging war on ISIS, declared or otherwise, isn’t war on an industrial scale. It will rely on U.S. airpower, including drones, and U.S. Special Forces, moving steadily toward the front lines alongside local fighters, to help grind ISIS into history. It’s unlikely to result in carpet-bombing, or massed allied tank armies plunging wholesale into Raqqa. It’s also unlikely that al-Baghdadi, facing sure defeat, would kill himself in a bunker as Adolf Hitler did. And ISIS will never sign instruments of surrender aboard a hulking U.S. warship, as Japan did to end World War II. Full Story