Before We Go To War With North Korea, The President Owes Americans A Public Debate

The Federalist

While Article II of the Constitution makes the president the commander-in-chief, and later laws give him the authority to repel sudden attacks, it does not afford him the power to declare war.

"The Trump administration’s rhetoric about North Korea is sounding “eerily and increasingly” like the rhetoric that the George W. Bush administration used in the run-up to the Iraq war.

"The U.S. Army has begun training thousands of soldiers in how to engage in tunnel warfare, in preparation for the honeycomb of tunnels and bunkers that dot the North Korean countryside. In October, the Pentagon sent a letter to Congress outlining what would be at stake for U.S. forces in the event of a ground invasion on the Korean peninsula.

"The North Korean question is very much on the minds of the Trump administration. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are reportedly “particularly focused” on the North Korean threat, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has highlighted the need to “ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed.” Trump’s national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, went one step further, telling the nation that “preventative war” against North Korea may indeed be in the offing.

"That a war with North Korea would be horrific is without question. War is hell, as William Tecumseh Sherman was fond of saying, and modern warfare is certainly no exception, particularly given the threat of a nuclear attack. It is partially for this reason that America’s founders made extra attempts to ensure the president could not wage war on his own, without the consent of Congress." . . .