The worst-case scenario is now a possible one: European troops fighting off an invasion largely alone.
It’s by no means clear the Europeans would succeed. Romanian and other European officials at the exercise in Cincu, about 260 kilometers (162 miles) north of Bucharest by road, voiced concerns about how long it would take for NATO allies to make it to the front.
French four-star General Philippe de Montenon said he’s confident Europe could prevail, even without the US on side. “The direction of history is a progressive disengagement of the United States from the European continent,” he said.
It would be better if the U.S. just waits a minute sees shat happens, and then congress votes to declare war and the executive branch would have to act based upon their vote or would be directly disobeying the legislature again. Congress declares war. Not the executive branch. And in the end we are the only country to enact article 5 in history, when 9/11 happened and NATO countries answered the call even though many probably did not wish too.
The thing here would be that unless Russis initiates the attack, it wouldn’t trigger article 5 and congress could just ignore it.
And a lot of people would like to ignore it even with the long term pitfalls, because all they care about is themselves and right this very second
Congress authorized enormous discretion to the president under the NDAA and AUMF. There’s no actual need to declare war in the modern era.
Other than the part about it forcing the executive branch to act and holding all of them responsible for not upholding the laws written by the legislature. But congress wouldn’t likely do it.