I am blaming the policy that he created, which persists to this day.
since George W. created that policy, it has been used as a tool for endless "interventions" without Congressional approval. We never declare war anymore, we just "intervene."
Military resources and morale are being stretched thin by these crony, unapproved war campaigns. We need to roll back these executive powers asap.
When Congress declares war it needs the request of the Potus/CinC. Congress can't just up and vote to declare war. Congress in the system of checks and balances and separation of powers needs the formal request of the Potus/CinC. The two need to be together on funding and prosecuting a war involving the entire resources of the nation that sends massive numbers of troops off to fight.
A declaration of war is a huge act and national action. It is reserved for mobilizing the entire nation militarily and at home for production. In a declared war debt has no limit. A declaration of war is against a nation state or it runs the real risk of being illegal under International Law and the Laws of War. Neither Taliban nor ISIS et all are a nation state.
Had Congress declared war in the Korean Conflict which is the legal name in the USA -- not the Korean
War -- Mao and China would have shat a brick and got into it right away instead of entering the Conflict as US forces approached the Yalu River border of CCP-NK in a UN authorized intervention. At that point all Mao wanted to do was stop the US forces, not try to defeat 'em. Mao did regain NK territorially and that's how the Conflict ended and still stands, as a truce. There's no peace treaty because there was no "war" as declared by Congress or by the UN. Additionally NK still does not recognize a "peace" with SK nor will it.
Congress voted to recognize the war in Vietnam as the "Vietnam Era" rather than as The War it did not declare and that was never requested by either Potus/CinC Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford. Congress acted after the VA declared the "Vietnam Era Veteran" to make those veterans legally eligible for specific treatments and benefits. Congress and the DoD have shorter timelines and dates than the VA has -- so the broader VA definition applies to Vietnam Era veterans only.
Congress votes Resolutions in any instance of a request by the Potus/CinC to commit US forces abroad to engage a legally defined enemy. Which is why the GW administration came up with "non state combatant" as the legal term justifying US military engagement in foreign lands abroad, in Afghanistan but not only Afghanistan (the US had to bomb Laos and Cambodia during the VN Conflict, and not only). Thus the Taliban had the legal definition of non state combatant, ie, an illegitimate ad hoc non state military force that needed to be engaged by US and allies by hybrid military means. That is, counter terrorism, war on terrorism, counter insurgency, the notion of "small wars" and so on.
So for Korea, VN and post 9/11 it was unnecessary, unpopular and unwise to declare war which would mobilize the entire nation and its resources when there was not an actively menacing, well armed and financed attacker nation state. We shout loudly about Iran being a state sponsor of terrorism yet we choose to address it by superior hybrid military means that now include armed aerial drones rather than a formal declaration of war. In a post VN Era formal declaration of war activating selective service levies of new troops from among the civilian population would have become problematical with the American public. I mean, Congress declaring war against Afghanistan? Grenada?? Belgrade?
Americans anyway continue to support the AVF, it's the MAGAs who have abandoned the American armed forces whose oath to the Constitution is to preserve, protect, defend same against all enemies foreign
and domestic. MAGAs have always known which they are -- and whose side they're on together with hostile foreign governments.