read our bill. study our bill. if you suggested improvements to our bill then please bring them to us and we will work with you in order to get the bill to a place that we can get you 118 people to vote for it and get out of the people's house, the house of representatives. the time is urgent some to represent a quarter community who is dealing with these public safety threats and ashes could he threats on a daily basis and the communities are represented as you all under a draft every single day dealing with these threats. the time is urgent. this is not time to play politics. this is time for people to solve this issue and close these loopholes to keep us safe. i want to thank the gentleman for the testimony and members for the question. what you take effect director homan for your years to our country and many law enforcement positions, god bless you in your transition out and thanks for your service and all you've done for us. members of the gimme may have additional for the witnesses.

rule as to respond to these in writing. pursuant to committee rules the hearing record will be held speedy relief the last few minutes to go to capitol hill this afternoon where scholars from the cato institute are taking part in the professional caucuses constitutional authority to declare war. live coverage here on c-span2. >> for those of you who are less familiar with our mission, they cato institute is a public policy research organization dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and to peace. in pursuit of these values, cato scholars produce independent nonpartisan research and analysis on a wide range of policy topics. today's topic as you hopefully gathered from the title of the event is on war power. we are here today not only because this is a preview issue that's always worthy of reflection and debate but also because of an increasing pressure on and apparent

interest within congress to really examine what is now a nearly 17-year-old authorization for use of military force. joining us to discuss this important topic today are two of caterers distinguished scholars, jean healy and john glaser. jean is a vice president at the cato institute whose research come interest inclu execuve power and the role of the presidency. jean is the author of several books including the cold of the presidency, america's dangerous devotion to executive power and he has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including pbs "newshour" with jim lehrer, and npr talk of the nation. his writings have appeared in the "l.a. times," the "new york times," "chicago tribune" and other publications throughout the country. gene holds bachelors degree from georgetown university and a j. d. from the university of chicago.

john glaser is with the director of foreign policy studies at the cato institute. his research interests include grand strategy, facing posture you and foreign policy in the middle east, the rise of china and the role of status motivation international politics. john has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and is written for the "new york times", the "washington post", "l.a. times", foreign affairs and the national interest among others. john earned a ba in political science from the university of massachusetts amherst, and an inmate international security from the charter school public policy and government at george mason university. we will begin with the remarks. there will be plenty of time for questions at the end so please hold those until after the discussion has concluded. and with that will turn things over to gene. >> thanks, jeff.

thank you to all of you for being here. as jeff know we're in the middle of a renewed debate here on the hill about what role, if any, that congress should play in the choice between war and peace. that's the most fundamental decision that any government can make and it's one that our constitution entrusts to congress. but for nearly 17 years now, that choices that lead to to the executive branch with the result of the united states has been almost constantly at war. in president obama's last year alone, the u.s. forces dropped over 26,000 bombs on seven different countries, and obama left office as the first two-term president in american history to have been at war every single day of his presidency. that's in large part thanks to a joint resolution that congress passed three days after 9/11.

2001 authorization for use of military force, or aumf. we president in a row have worked that initially limited authorization into an enabling act for globe spanning presidential war. it's been made broad enough to cover everything from airstrikes to boots on the ground in togo tonga. in the top administrations position, like the obama administration's before it, is that congress have already had its debate on war powers, 17 17 years ago, and it is one congress, one vote, one time. last sunday on memorial day the "washington post" ran a story profiling a soldier named gabrielle khan. on april 30 when he was killed in action in afghanistan, he was 22. when congress voted to go to war, he was in kindergarten.

so it seems to me it's about time that we're having this debate. at least once in a generation congress should probably wait in on multiple wars that we are fighting. but this may also presents a pretty substantial risk, the risk that caucuses going to pass a new aumf that seats even more power to the president, playing the legal groundwork for another generation or more of presidential war. today john and i are going to make the case that the best way to avoid that danger is to wipe the slate clean, to repeal and not replace the 2001 aumf. recognize that the original authorization has run its course, and sunset did, leaving adequate time, six to nine months, to wrap up ongoing combat operations and for the president to make the case for eating new authorization that he thinks is needed. and if he does he can make the

case to congress the way the constitution envisions. but our constitutions framers believed that war was serious business and that going to war should be somewhat difficult. it should involve a broad national consensus, a consensus across both houses and in multiple branches. james madison held it as an axiom that the executive is the department the department of our most distinguished by its propensity to war. therefore, it's the practice of all states in proportion as they are free to disarm this propensity of itsnfluen. the framers did that by creating the bulk of the constitution military powers to congress, including control of the decision to go to war in the first place. that didn't leave the president totally disarmed. the president retained in this scheme some defensive authority. the power to repel sudden

attacks is the way that madisons notes raise it. but absent an imminent threat, absent provocation, the constitution to the president no power to launch sudden attacks. it will not be in the power of a single man to involve us in such distress, pennsylvania's james wilson summed up in 1787, because of the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large. the system will not hurry us into war, he said, and is calculated to guard against it. that was the way was supposed to work. of course it didn't always work that way. well before 9/11 you can point to multiple examples of presidents launching wars without congressional authorization, invasion of granada under ronald reagan, panama under george h. w. bush, kosovo under president clinton, and so on.

but the presidential wars in the late 20 century were for the most part exceptions to a general rule. they were geographically limited and temporary departures from baseline of peace. since the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001, we've watched the emergence of a radically different regime you're the one in which going to war is easy, it's frequent and it's rarely debated. this system will not hurry us into peace. in fact, it has made war america's default setting. the use of lethal force is now so ubiquitous, so normalized that in many ways we hardly able to notice it anymore. just one example, in the run-up to the 2016 election over labor day weekend, the obama administration launched some 70 airstrikes across its countries, iraq, syria, afghanistan, yemen,

somalia and libya. 20 years ago this would have been staggering, and nightly news broadcast all would've led with this. in 2016 after decades of permanent war, we barely looked up from the grill. so senator tim kaine is right when he says that too long congress has given presidents a blank check to wage war, and he is right and he should be committed for wanting to change that. but if our eerience with t 2001 aumf has taught us anything, it's that presidential push the authority that there given as far as language will allow, and probably beyond. the relevant clause of the 2001 aumf is 60 words long. it targets the perpetrators of september 11 attacks and those who harbor or repeated them pick

it says nothing about associated forces. however, that concept, the concept of associated forces has become a bottomless fountain of presidential authority to wage war against groups that didn't exist on 9/11, that are not associate with al-qaeda, that may even in the case of ices, for example, may even be at war with them. that in many cases do not present any serious or sustained threat to the united states homefront. and most of the replacement aumfs that are currently on the table in congress, including the one that senator king drafted senator bob corker grant far more authority than the original aumf. it is practically certain it would be stretched even further. there aumf starts by providing authorization for war against at

least eight enemies and at least six countries. under section 3a the president is authorized to use all necessary appropriate force against the taliban, al-qaeda and isis. is also for section 5a and power to wage war against al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula, al-shabaab in somalia, allocating syria including the al-nusra front, the haqqani network and al-qaeda in the islamic madrid. but that is only the beginning. also under section five the president can decide at any time to wage war against new enemies in new countries, and he is supposed to let us know within 48 hours of doing so, released his supposed to let congress know. the resolution boasts about its transparency requirements make it leaves open the possibility that the president can bury the announcement of new targets and new battlefields in a classified

annex unavailable to the general public. for my money, one of the saddest senses in the resolution comes up front in its legislates statement of purpose. the purpose of this joint resolution it says is to reaffirm that conquers, the president, and the american people stand united in their resolve to defeat the taliban, al-qaeda, , isis, and designated associated forces, whoever they might be, whenever the president decides to designate them, and even if you won't strictly tell us who they are. we pledge our lives, fortunes and sacred honor to total victory against the designated associated forces. doesn't really have an entire definition. under corker-kaine congress retains the right to object to mission creep but unless congress can muster a majority,

to overturn the president's decision, he gets to expand the war at will. also under corker-kaine, the legislation doesn't sunset every four years as a congressional oversight provision, but again unless congress can muster a vetoproof majority, the war authority will continue and be perpetually renewed indefinitely. this is not a way of reasserting congresses constitutional powers. powers. it's rather a method for institutionalizing the forever war. and it turns the constitution upside down. this is not the way the constitutional democracies are supposed to go to war. other membership introduce somewhat narrower aumfs, on the house side bipartisan group led by congressman mike coffman, he has drafted alternative that features a five-year sunset. the authority will actually expire unless it is permanently

renewed. congressman adam schiff aumf has a three-year sunset. but both of these include fairly broad associated forces provision that allow the president to expand the target list which institutionalize mission creep. the aumf entities by senator jeff merkley avoids most of these pitfalls. it is about as tightly and smartly crafted as it were authorization can be. it's limited to two countries, iraq and afghanistan, three groups, the countries and targets must be published, cannot be classified, and it turns things right side up. for the most part the president is required to come to congress to add new countries and new groups. even so, even the merkley resolution bypasses the debate that we ought to be having about even the core groups that are included in each alternative

aumf. that is, al-qaeda, t taliban and isis. we ought to be debating what continuing war authorities are necessary for those groups. instead, john and i argue for a war powers reset. restoring, sunsetting the aumf, keeping it separate from a debate about new war authorizations and restoring america's default setting to peace, not war. the president decides that al-shabaab or boko haram, for example,, , represent serious long-term threats to our national security, they will be free to make that case to the people's representatives and secure new authorization for war in the way the constitution envisions. but we're told in this debate,

for example,, in the corker-kaine resolution that numerous nonstate terrorist groups now pose a grave threat to the united states. but when the dreamers crafted the constitution with its initial allocation of war powers, they were in a pretty bad neighborhood. the united states was a small front to republic on the edge of the continent occupied by periodically hostile great powers and indian marauders. there were great threats, there were dangers, nonetheless our first president george washington wasn't even sure that he had the authority to take offensive action against indian tribes, hostile indian tribes, without appropriate authorizio from congress. these decisions t limit the amount of

war power that one person could exercise, i think you could argue that the threats were somewhat greater than they are today. one thing, that's something that john is going to talk about, can the threats that they've identified, the threats that we face today, are they fast enough in great enough to justify the offending and overturning of the original constitutional scheme for congressional war powers? and making that case, the case that the threats today are that grave i think is extremely difficult. he will have more to say about that. >> thank you, jeanne.

thank you all for coming. i'm pleased to see such a good showing for this issue. as gene said while he focus on a lot of the legal and constitutional and some of the political problems with the two existing aumfs and why those problems risk being either tapered over or even exacerbated by repealing it and replace it with a new one that fails to impose serious restraints on executive war powers, i'm going to focus on other side of the coin, foreign-policy, strategic and national security implications of this issue. but i do want to start, i'm going to talk about the effectiveness and utility of u.s. military force in the face of these terrorist threats and whether or not they pose a great enough threat to justify a kind of permanent war fighting. but i do want to start rebuilding off some of what gene

mentioned briefly throughout his remarks, and i want to take stock of the scope and the cost and effectiveness of u.s. military action taken abroad under the two post-9/11 aumfs. it's important to dwell on those costs because the damage of unchecked executive war powers is not limited to the erosion of constitutional principles or the rule of law. there are real strategic financial and human costs involved as well. currently use troops are fighting terrorists in various nonstate militants in 14 different countries. we have bombed syria, for example, 13,000 times in the past couple of years. last year alone trump bombed yemen more than 130 times targeting al-qaeda and isis militants. that's up from 38 times in 2016. if you remember back to the first couple of weeks after the

inauguration, trump authorized a special forces raid in yemen that was botched. it got a navy seal killed, up to 30 civilians killed, and action does just that legally under the aumf. trump claim it was a huge success, that it yielded major intelligence value, but it was widely viewed as a spectacular failure and it is notable that even high-profile fumbles like this, you barely hear a peep about what legal authority the president has to engage in these kinds of operations without explicit congressional authority, without a public debate, as gene pointedly put it, we barely looked up from our grills. trump has bombed somalia more than 40 times. as of march trump has bombed libya eight times, at least that we know of. the pentagon initially only report for of those. since 2014 the pentagon says and

isis operations is cost more than $14 billion, likely and undercount. partly because of president trump's loosening of the rules of engagement. laster was the deadliest year for civilian casualties since the start of the anti-ice is camping with more than 6000 people killed in strikes conducted by the u.s.-led coalition in iraq and syria. that is an increase of more than 200% over the previous year. the iraq and afghanistan wars, the two named theaters of the two main aumf have come at a price tag of roughly $5 trillion, and unfathomable amount of money. conservative estimate of the number of iraqis killed in the u.s. war exceed 200,000, not to mention the millions of refugees and internally displaced people at it is generally. it also destabilize the entire reon, iranian power come generated higher rates of

extremists islamic terrorism, undermine u.s. national security and the number of ways, the war in afghanistan continues to be an abysmal failure. back in march u.s. army general john nicholson said trump's new strategy, quote new strategy, which include increased airstrikes and a marginal increase in troop presence, in other words, not a new strategy, is present situation in afghanistan. so like when his predecessor john campbell, general john campbell said he, too, quote scene change improve results. general joseph dunford back in 2013 talked about the inevitability of our success. his predecessor john allen declared we are winning. general david petraeus in 2011, we have reversed the momentum of the taliban. stan mcchrystal 2010, success is still achievable. general david mckiernan, 2009, the united states is not losing

in afghanistan. this routine goes all the way back to 2001. the rally is that since the beginning of the obama -- reality -- up till now the war in afghanistan has claimed the lives of almost 30,000 civilians, injured more than 50,000 civilians. the taliban are currently controls or contest about 45% of afghanistan subdistricts. they hold more territory today than at any point since 2001. despite 16 16 years of nationbuilding and throwing resources at the problem, afghanistan government remains more corrupt than 96% of all countries. number of bombs dropped by the western coalition in afghanistan in early 2018 was the highest it'd been since 2013. 2013. suicide attacks with up 50%, insurgent attacks overall tripled in 2017. in short, , the two existing

aumfs have afforded such wide latitude for war, so little check on specified targets, geography and time, that these ventures can impose enormous costs, wide-ranging consequences without triggering much pushback from congress. now, all of this effort, manpower, allocation of resources, all of these hugely consequential and often devastating policies are justified as measures to mitigate the terrorist threat. and given all the terrible cause a negative consequences, the most relevant question is a site from the legal and constitutional questions, have these policies and successful in mitigating the terrorist threat? have achieved that objective in some ways? the first bible with answering that question of course is there isn't much with it to begin with what i will get into that in a bit. can these policies that these three president in a row have

been empowered to carry out,, thanks to the aumf, be said to have successfully mitigated the terrorist threat? i think it's really hard to answer that question in the affirmative. in some cases thereer some short-term benefits. the drone war in pakistan had an impact of initial stage of the afghan war, militants scattered and that hindered their capabilities. but over the long term it turns out military forces not all that effective a tool in mitigating the terrorist threat. there is compelling evidence that our actions have exacerbated the war. u.s. nato air war against moammar gadhafi is libya which is the only major military use of force since 9/11 not covered under the aumf and action was aware the obama administration said they don't need congressional authorization for anyways, but unless it is an example of a military force can create new terrorist threats that didn't present exist.

libya hardly came up on the radar as a theater in the global war on terror before the u.s. and its european allies overthrew moammar gadhafi but in the chaotic aftermath and the week wishing that replaced it libya has been, terrorism spike in libya. isis gained a foothold there. it has since been on the receiving end of just military action with i think dubious legal authority under the aumf. isis has taken even more egregious example. still the group that endangers the most year and headlights. isis grew out of the insurgency that rose to fight u.s. forces in iraq. as david kilcullen have seen advisor to general petraeus at height of the iraq surge put it, quote, there would be no isis if we had not invaded iraq. as early as 2006, the u.s. national intelligence committee is national intelligence estimate on trends in global terrorism found the iraq war was

quote shaping a new generation of terrorists leaders and operatives. the war had become a call celebrate for jihadists reading a deeper sin of youth involved in the muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. that's true more generally and the hard numbers bear it out. in 2015 the number of the top of these, by 2015 the number of fatalities from terrorism in the middle east at increased by a staggering 397% since 2001. and in the seven countries that the united states either bombed or invaded since 9/11, terrorist attacks, , number of individual test the tax rose to an astonishing 1900%. and the data don't show any such spike in the comparable countries that the united states did not intervene in. so a spike i terrorism follows u.s. military intervention in these countries. if anything, open ended authorizations for the u.s. use

of motive force and middle east made us less safe and not more. i fully understand the impulse to ask a response to this, well, what are you suggesting we do? nothing? i think there are several responses to the. first of all there is a sizable academic literature on how terrorist groups and/or fadeaway, or least how they have in the past. they don't tend to emphasize military force. rather things like political integration and eventual moderation can prolong modernization with stable security environments and so on. this dries up recruitment and opportunities for violence, go way and we just need be realistic about limits of what use military force can achieve in terms of setting up those conditions. secondly, there's plenty we can do in the room of intelligence and law enforcement to tackle existing terrorism threats that we need to scrutinize how much of a threat terrorism actually is. the facts the thing present a much more sanguine picture than the political rhetoric and

hysterical media coverage of terrorism that we hear about. it's not the existential menace that we are told to . it's really pretty minor and manageable threat. so first of all your chances being killed senators attack you on u.s. soil are infinitesimally small pick in september 11 the chance are about one in 40 million. you're more likely to be struck by lightning. if you average it out in the years since 9/11, the average number of americans killed in the united states by islamist terrorism is about six per year. and if you extract omar mateen, the isis isis inspired individo shot of the pulse nightclub in florida, if you take it of the equation, that number would be in half, so the three per year. so many people died and that that it has shot up to six per year per average. compare that with the 63,632

people in america that died like taking drugs, 2016. or the fact that non-terrorist homicide to kill roughly 20,000 americans in the past 30 years. just think think of the incredible disproportionate resources devoted to the comparatively tiny threat of terrorism. try to look up any reputable source that lists leading causes of death i the united states, any government srce, ngo, health organization. you will find terrorism conspicuously absent. top ten, top 25, top 100. 9/11 was a traumatic event and it led us to misinterpret the nature of the threat from al-qaeda and related groups. it was an extreme outlier in the history of terrorist attacks, not a harbinger of things to come, not an indication of a new era of global threat, et cetera. and i think the record in the years since speak for itself. picky to catalog all of the

temperatures attacks in the united states since 9/11 from the shoe bomber to the underwear bomber to the times square bomber, to fort hood, to boston marathon, a all fall into one of three categories. the first category is the fact that some operational connection to foreign terrorist groups and through their own incompetence typically failed to successfully carry out the attacks including the mastermind who lit his underwear on fire. the second category is the attacker had zero operation connections overseas terrorist groups in the committed or attempted to commit some awful attack that they come on their own computer called isis inspired or al-qaeda inspired, or lone wolf attacks. in the third category is that the attack was either induced or in some cases entrapped by undercover informants to conduct a phony pt cooked up by u.s.

law enforcement. the details of those cases, i recommend the award-winning book terror factor, terra factory. it's almost comical what the level of stupidity and ineptitude that these would-be attackers have. at a lot of experts within never would've had the ability or potential initiative to conduct the attacks without the fabricated sting operations. isis has never once conducted a successful terrorist attack on u.s. soil. there's why such a thing as isis inspired attacks, , i guess wha, a blank check for war in four of muslim countries does literally nothing to stop these peer in 2016 as i mentioned omar mateen killed almost 50 people in the pulse nightclub. ask yourself how u.s. troops in

afghanistan, airstrikes in iraq, drone bombings in yemen, airstrikes in somalia, special forces raids and so on, how could they possibly have foiled that attack or one like it? or had any effect, any impact whatsoever. you might argue use military action just might under the aumf could have prevented sandy hook. they are just unconnected to the extent that they are connected,, omar mateen said the triggering event for him was bombing of an isis leader, but he probably would've done anyway. he was a disturbedndividua but there's this dramatic disconnect between the fear felt to at home abo the threat of terror and the actual utility the specific use military operations have in preventing attacks here. the taliban is another group specifically mention in the new draft aumf. but it's not clear why. they are domestically focused group.

they've never engaged in international terrorism. in fact, only a threat to americans to extent that we insist on living amongst them in afghanistan. one of the most isolated and strategically insignificant plots of territory in the world. to be fair no one claimed the taliban is going to come in and attack us or our allies. they claim is that in absence of an aumf authorized user to action against them, they will continue to rule afghanistan and be a safe haven where groups like al-qaeda and isis can plot transnational attacks. scholars refer to this as the safe haven myth. it is something not true that afghanistan would have operational utility for this cruise to hatch terrorist attacks against us. it's kind of a myth that al-qaeda is presence in afghanistan and the lead up to 9/11 was useful in the success of those attacks. the attacks a plant in

afghanistan but also in hamburg, germany, florida, malaysia, boston. in this day and age of instance borderless communications, territorial safe havens just are not that operationally useful for and actually they can be a liability. what a unique things about isis that it insist on obtaining territory, which is strategically stupid is now we have a target. the benefit, the strategic asset of groups like al-qaeda is that you don't know where they are. so just to wrap up international security rationale, i think for a presidential blank check for global war on terror is extremely weak, contrary to this story has surrounded terrorism, it's a minor and manageable threat, not a were to be one. the bulk of our post-9/11 military actions have exacerbated this limited rather than mitigated it. if congress were to take advice and gene and i that the right

course is repealed and not replace aumfs, with a new and fresh or authorization for continued work, i don't think this should be confused with tying the hands of the president. as gene said whoever holds the office has inherent powers to repel sudden attacks or seek new specific authorizations to defend against new threats on a case-by-case basis. thanks very much. [applause] >> thank you both for your fantastic presentations. we will go ahead and open the floor up to questions now. for those of you who do have questions, we do have a microphone around december so please wait for that to arrive, and please state your name and affiliation. and if you would please state your question in the form of the question as opposed to a statement. first. >> thank you so much for coming

today. i just have a question regarding the associated forces in some of the different proposed aumfs and the post-9/11. associate for support of that. i'm wondering to what extent there is a difference in how they are defined to the scope of that and the one that senator corker introduced, or associate forces is a part of senator merkley or represented shifts? i have looked into those as much as i have the senator corker one. >> so the question is about speedy associated forces. >> in the various -- >> and what differences there are between the post-9/11 in regards to the aumfs and the one proposed by senator corker. >> the phrase appears nowhere in the 2001 aumf.

it was sort of an extrapolation from a the language about harboring or aiding the perpetrators of 9/11, which you can argue there was some extra authority in there to sweep up new groups. what's happened in the decade and a half since is it's been daisychained out to include groups that are not strictly associated with the original targets of the resolution, including isis, group that was excommunicated by al-qaeda and was actively at war with them. i think the history of the 2001 aumf with regard to associated forces says that when you are starting with basically nothing, and it's been allowed to expand

in that dramatic fashion, that you have to be very careful about what associated forces,, provisions you specifically right into an aumf. off the top of my head from my recollection, in the tightest definition of associated forces, i don't want to rifle through too many papers here, is in the merkley aumf. they have to be co-belligerence with the three groups that are identified in an aumf, taliban, isis, and al-qaeda. and you also include a provision, interesting to see what effect this would have, but when there is an associated force, the president, the authority can expire without congress doing anything.

there has to be continuing repeated certification that the group has the ability to attack the united, demonstrated incredible ability to attack the united states homeland. so senator merkley, the narrowest grant of that authority, and senator corker and senator kaine, the broadest, includes if i recall correctly that they are engaged in expansive definition includes people that are engaged in hostilities with our coalition partners instead of just the united states, the united states armed forces. and it has very little bite in terms of restraining the president stability to add friends and friends of friends of friends, the way the 2001

aumf has led to such extensive mission creep. >> back of the room. >> just wait for the microphone. >> thank you for saking wh us today. i'm curious as to what implications would arise from congress regaining control over its wartime powers, given that over the years and in the future is likely to be more a more polarized? >> well, polarization makes it hard to get things done, for good and for bad. when it comes to war, arguably the thumb on the scale should be against precipitous action. i'm not sure that, you know, one

of the things that has seem to be the most bipartisan, the biggest bipartisan consensus in washington is for, is often time for continued war authority. i'm not sure that the drift towards more ideological polarization along the parties in recent decades. i'm not sure it makes a great deal of difference. i think in these things the problem has always been and increasingly it's a bigger and bigger problem, getting congress to accept responsibility that the constitution really gets it. madison had this idea that said sort of a self perpetuating machine where the interest ambitions would counter ambition, the interests of the individual actors within a branch would lead them to defend

their respective branches turf and authority, and what we've seen in recent decades is that works fairly well for the presidency. anybody who occupies the presidency always in step trying to do what dick cheney said that was his goal, is to leave the presidency stronger than they found it. but it's very difficu t try to get congress, to get individual congressmen andomen to buckle down and care about these core constitutional responsibility. there's a lot of them. they don't have the individual incident. it is a shell game for the american voter, you know, trying to pin down loose, exactly -- who is exactly responsible for the last 17 years of war. so the polarization doesn't

worry me. what worries me is the institutional incentives that make it difficult for the system come for congress to take responsibility and for the system to function as it was intended. >> just to second that point that polarization can at times be helpful for constraining war powers, think back to 2013 when the obama administration was approaching the decision to formally ask congress for authorization to bomb syria for no good reason. there's a lot of things that caused opposition. it was lots of public opposition and lots the people calling in to their elected representatives and so forth. but the republicans indefinitely like to post whatever obama supported and it might've stopped a very stupid initiation of force. and if you contrast that with what's happening recently with

april 2017 and april 2018 when trump engaged in these symbolic military attacks on the syrian regime for no strategic or tactical or national security reason whatsoever, he did so without even aiming to congress congressional authority and he took it upon himself. that's the situation which everyone in congress can't just say thumbs up or quietly abide because we are not being asked to take responsibility for it. when you put responsible is not in congress is hanscom of it there is polarization or not, they tend to take these questions or series as opposed to just to give it to the president. >> additional questions? yes. >> my name is max. thanks for putting this all together. my question regarding much of

the war on terror is fought online. against various jihadists terrace and things like that. so does aumf like include war efforts on part of the united states government fighting this? and should it? and i guess should we be concerned about -- [inaudible] getting caught up in american surveillance state in regards to the aumf? >> i kind of wish more of her wars were fought online. rard t, that's an interesting entangled question. the aumf talks about all necessary and appropriate force. so i suppose if there are any reason to wage, like a stuxnet

type of cyber warfare against a nonstate terrorist actor, you could make a case that falls under the rubric of necessary and appropriate force. for law enforcement, intelligence operations, against the lone wolves or transnational terrorists affiliated individuals, you are not really in the realm of the aumf, other than i think it does speak to, be careful what you authorize. because among the things that the 2001 aumf has been cited for, congress arguably never contemplated, was invoked a a number of times in the bush administration for so-called terrorist surveillance program.

it had been invoked for the detention of u.s. citizen, jose padilla, captured on u.s. soil. so these things do have a tendency to be interpreted far more broadly than the initial, but anyone contemplated in the initial authorization. if you go back and look at what people in congress were saying at the time and what little debate we had before we passed the 2001 aumf, you don't get the sense that anyone contemplated that they were committing the united states to open ended multi generational warfare. jill biden was in the senate at the time saying this is nothing like the gulf of tonkin resolution. we are not saying added, go pell-mell, go do anything anyway. this is much more limited. well now it's been a existence to close as twice as long as the

gulf of tonkin resolution and it's hard to tell the difference between just and open ended wholesale delegation congress is war authority. i think that something we have to pay attention to even when it comes to areas like surveillance. >> that said, by and large i think what you will find is the issues are treated differently. authorization for use of military force i think is more traditionally defined as bombs and bullets, and not quite cyber. cyber. there is cyber warfare but most of i think the use of the internet in protecting the country from potential attackers, i mean, there's a confluence of bureaucracies roam the fbi to the nsa to the cia that operate in that realm. in many cases with regard to

u.s. persons, they will need a warrant and do have to go through the process. and with overseas people, the gloves are off in any case with regard to the intelligence unity in the realm of the internet. i think what you find is those things are separate. >> additional questions? >> my name is jesse. in eisenhower said farewell address, he once against the military industrial complex. what role, if any, do you think there's pressure being put on by, let me trade very lightly on this, but big defense contractors who are located in districts of very posh, influential members of congress on committees that have crazy amounts of influence, and the military just like him for example, we see the tapes of lyndon b. johnson and his military advisor, advisers

telling him pretty much lies to try to keep him in vietnam? what role if any do think the military industrial complex has in keeping the aumf and keeping the status quo? >> in my opinion it is much more to give the effect of the industrial complex. it is less specific to an aumf for the specific role of the military and the role on terror. but you are perfectly right to point out, it has always amazed me that members of congress who in public are very practiced in praising the military, putting high military officials on a pedestal, and then the generals will get in front of a committee anticipates a we really don't need money for this weapons system. it's not relevant to the way we fight. members of cox again who are typically submissive to these people say well, grew it because it's awful to me and my district

and my campaign money, and so that is a factor and less the amf debate and more the broad scope of the fact we have a massive military effort in the world. with 800 military bases in 70 or 80 countries around the world. we've engaged in more individual military interventions in the past 30 years and we had in the previous 190 years of our existence, and that does relate to the growth of the military industrial complex. but there are other factors as well. in the bureaucratic interest in much of u.s. government and national security realm to inflate threats and pretend like we have existential threats heidi behind every corner. because no one wants to go to their superior at the end of the budget year and say, you know, actually i think i'm chasing ghosts. why don't you fire have my staff and demote me?

there are bureaucratic and budgetary interests that keep this expansive national security state that we have, and prevent a maeterlinck of the definition of u.s. national interest. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> defense priorities. i want to ask about something a little beyond the authorization for use of military force and ask about authorizations for the use of military cooperation. in chapter 16 of title ten, for example, or the foreign assistance, foreign assistance act? yes. there's all sorts of authorities to help friendly countries or really anyone who might be helping us with

counterterrorism. do you see those kinds of authorities as being appropriate under the constitutional balance of power? what would you characterize policy implications? >> i think by and large of the credit has to rethink its approach to alliances. it used to be the case that you made alliances to help you fight wars or protect against wars that could be around the corner. now we just have alliances for their own sake and they are supposed to cover lots of things, not just national security questions. they are supposed to cover democracy promotion. they're supposed to cover intelligence sharing. they are supposed to cover economic cooperation. i think we need to rethink how permanently we cooperate on a military and national security level with allies, not to say that we shouldn't cooperate, but

constant military cooperation and sharing to chase threats that i think are either insignificant or imaginary is not helpful. and i think contributes to the ballooning effect of our national security state. >> okay. and that concludes today event. thank you all for coming let's get our speakers a round of applause. [applause] ..

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[inaudible conversations] >> we will be back on capitol hill next week when congress returns from its memorial day holiday work. u.s. senate returns monday for u.s. district court in texas, kentucky and alabama. u.s. house will be back on tuesday to work on its first federal spending bill for 2019, funding the energy of veteran affairs department in-house operation spirit members will work on legislation to reauthorize water in the richer projects. live coverage of the house on seats and watch the senate on espn2. this afternoon on c-span2, will

take you to the world resources institute for discussion on climate change and how president trump's decision to pull out of the paris climate agreement might affect efforts to combat around the world. that will be live at 2:30 eastern on c-span2. the