here's a look at what's ahead today on c-span3. constitution war powers. then a climate change. then cybersecurity and intelligence forum with military perspective. and at 7:15, this week's primary minister's questions from the british house of commons. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress. the white house. the supreme court. and public policy events in washington d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider.

next, a forum on constitutional war powers and how military authorization approved by congress in 2001 is still being used to confront global security threats. the cato institute hosted this event earlier this month. >> good afternoon everyone. thank you for joining us today for our capitol hill briefing titled, recapturing congress war powers, repeal, don't replace the 2001. my name is jeff vanderslice and government of affairs at the cato institute. the cato institute is a public policy research organization dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. in pursuit of these values, cato

scholars produce independent nonpartisan research and analysis on the wide range of policy topics. today's topic, as you hopefully gathered from the title of the event, is on war powers. we are here today not only because this is a perennial issue that's always worthy of reflection and debate, but also because of an increasing pressure on and a parent interest within congress to re-examine what is now a nearly 17-year-old authorization for the use of military force. joining us to discuss this important topic today is two of cato scholars gene healy and john glaser. gene healy is a vice president at the cato institute whose research interests include executive power and the role of the presidency. gene is the author of several books, including the cult of the presidency, america's dangerous devotion to executive power. and he has appeared on numerous television and radio programs,

including pbs news hour with jim layer, and npr talk of the nation, and writings has appeared in the l.a. times, new york times, chicago tribune and others throughout the country. 408ds a bachelor's degree from georgetown and j.d. from the university of chicago. gene glaser is the director of foreign studies. his research interests include grand study, basing posture, u.s. foreign policy in the middle east, and rise of china and international politics. >> john has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and has written for the "new york times" t "washington post," l.a. times, foreign affairs, and the national interests, among others. john earned a b.a. in political science from the university of massachusetts, am hurst. and an ma in international

security from the char school of public policy and government at george mason university. we'll begin now with the remarks. there will be plenty of time for questions at the end so please hold those until after the discussion is concluded. with that, we'll turn things over to gene. >> thanks, jeff. thank you all for being here. as jeff noted, we are in the middle of the 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 choice has been left to the executive branch, with the result that the united states has been almost constantly at war. in president obama's last year

alone, u.s. forces dropped over 26,000 bombs on seven different countries and obama left office 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 the use of military force, or aumf. three presidents in a row have warped that initially limited authorization into an enabling act for globe spanning presidential war. it's been made broad enough to cover everything from air strikes to boots on the ground in ton go, ton go. and the trump administration's position, like the obama administrations before it, is that congress has already had its debate on war powers 17

years ago, and it's one congress, one vote, one time. last sunday, memorial day "the washington post" ran a story profiling ha soldier. on april 30th, 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 are having this debate. at least once in a generation congress should probably weigh in on the multiple wars that we are fighting. but this debate also presents a pretty substantial risk. the risk that congress is going to pass a new aumf that seeds even more power to the president laying the legal ground work 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 it, leaving adequate time, six to nine months to wrap up ongoing combat operations, and for the president to make the case for any new authorization that he thinks is needed. and if he does, he can make that case to congress the way the constitution envisions. our constitutions framers believed that war was serious business and that going to war should be somewhat difficult. it should involve an broad nation consensus, a consensus across both houses and in multiple branches. james madison held it as an action onthat tthat all states m

this propensity of its influence. tt framers did that by granting the bulk of the constitution's 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 attacks is the way madison notes phrases it. but absent provocation, the constitution gave the power no power to launch sudden attacks. it will not be in the power of a single man to involve us in such distress, pennsylvania james wilson summed up in 1887, because the important power of the declaring war is invested in the legislature at large. this system will not hurry us into war, he said. it is calculated to guard against it. so that was the way it 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. reagan, and panama in bush, and core so vo under clinton. bull they were exceptions to the general rule. they were geographically limited and temporary depart tours of peace. since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we watched different regime, one in which going to war is easy, it's frequent, and it's rare live debated. this system will not hurry us into peace. in fact, it's made war america's

default setting. the use choik of lethal force is so ubiquitous and normalized in many ways we are 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 air strikes across six countries, iraq, syria, afghanistan, yemen, somali, libya. but 20 years ago this would have been staggering, the nightly news broadcast all would have led with this. in 2016, after decades of permanent wash, we bare permanent war, we barely looked up from the grill. so senator tim kaine is right when he says for too long congress has given president sz blank check to wage war. and he's right and he should be commended for wanting to change that. but if our experience with the

2001 aumf has taught us anything, it's that presidents will push the authority they are given as far as language will allow and probably beyond. the relevant clause to the 2001 aumf is 6 to words long. it targets the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and those who harbored or aided them. it says nothing about associated forces. however that concept, the concept of associated forces has become a bottomless of presidential authority to wage war against groups that didn't exist on 9/11, that aren't associated with al qaeda, that may even in the case of isis, for example, may even be at war with them. and that in many cases do not present any serious or sustained threat to the united states home front. and most of the replacement aumf

on the table, collusion the one senator kaine did with corker, it's practically certain they will be stretched even further. the corker-kaine amuf starts by providing authorization for war against at least eight enemies in at least six countries under section 3 a the president is authorized to use all necessary appropriate force against the taliban, al qaeda and isis. he is also per section 5 a empowered to wage war against al qaeda, in some alia, and al qae in the islamic public. but that is only the beginning. also under section 5 the president can decide at any time to wage war against new enemies

in new countries. and he's supposed to let us know within 48 hours of doing so, or at least he's supposed to let congress know. the resolution boasts about its transparency requirements but leaves open the possibility that the president can bury the announcement of new targets and new battlefields at a classified ann next unavailable to general public. for my money, one of the saddest sentences in the resolution comes choik up front in its legislative statement of purpose. the purpose of this joint resolution, it says, is to re-affirm that congress, the president, and the american people stand united in their resolve to defeat the taliban, al qaeda, isis, and designated forces, whoever they might be, whenever the president decides to designate them, and even if he won't strictly tell us who

they are. we pledge our lives, fortunes and sacred honor against total victory against the designated forces. doesn't really have an inspiring ring. of course, under corker kaine congress retains the right to object to this mission. but unless congress can muster a veto proof 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 there is a congressional oversight provision. but, again, unless congress can muster a veto proof majority, the war authority will continue and be perpetually renewed in definitelily. this is not a way of reasserting congress constitutional 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 members have introduced somewhat narrowers aumf. on the house side, bipartisan group led by a congressman mike kaufman has drafted an alternative that features a five-year sunset. it will expire unless it's an affirmatively renewed. congressman adam sheriff aumf has a three year sunset. but both of these include fairly broad associated forces provisions that allow the president to expand the target list and which institutionalized the mission. the aumf introduced by senator merckly, it's two countries iraq and afghanistan, the targets

must be published. cannot be classified. and it turns things right side up. for the most part the president is it required to come to congress to add new countries and new groups. even so, even the merckly resolution by passes the debate that we ought to be having about even the core groups that are included in each alternative aumf. that is, a cal l qaeda, taliban isis, we should be seeing what is necessary for those war groups. instead, john and i argue for a war powers reset. restoring, sunsetting the aumf keeping it separate from debate about new war authorizations, and restoring america's default setting to peace, not war. the president decides thattal

shabaab or boca harem, he'll be free to make that case to the people's representatives and secure new authorization for war in the way that the constitution envisioned. we are told in this debate, for example, in the corker kaine resolution, that numerous nonstate terrorist groups now poise a grave threat to the united states. but when the framers crafted the constitution with its initial allocation of war powers, they lived in a pretty bad neighborhood. the united states was a small frontier republican on the edge of a continent occupied by periodic grave hostile and march

raiders. there were grave threats and dang remembers. nonetheless our first president george washington wasn't sure he had the authority to take offensive action against indian tribes without affirmative authorization from congress. when the framers made these decisions to limit the amount of war power that one person could exercise, i think you can argue that the threats were somewhat greater than they are today. one thing that -- that's something that john is going to talk about. can the threats they've identified, the threats we have today, are they vast enough and grave enough to justify the up ending and over turning 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. but he'll have more to say about that. >> thank you all for coming. i'm pleased to see such a great showing for this issue. so as gene said, while he focused on a lot of the legal and constitutional and some of the political problems with the two existing aumfs and why those problems risk even being papered over or even exacerbated by repealing it and replacing it with a new one that fails to impose serious constraints on executive war powers, i'm going to focus on the other side of the coin, kind of foreign policy

strategic and national security implications of this issue. but i do want to start, i'm going to talk about, you know, the effectiveness and utility of u.s. military force in the face of these terrorist threats and whether or not they pose a grave enough threat to justify a kind of permanent war footing. but i do want to start by building off some of what gene mentioned briefly throughout his remarks. and i want to take stock of this scope and the costs and infect tiffany's of u.s. military action taken abroad under the two post 9/11 aumf. and i think it's important to dwell on those costs because the damage is not limited to are rigs of principles or the rule of law, there are real strategic and human costs involved as well. so currently u.s. troops are

fighting terrorists in nonstate militants in 14 different countries l 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 isis. 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, got a navy sale killed, 14 alleged militants killed, an action that was justified legally under the aumf. trump claimed it was a huge success and yielded major intelligence value. but it was widely viewed as a spectacular failure. and it's notable that even high profile fumbles like this, 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 point endly put it, we barely looked up from our grills. trump has bombed somalia more than 40 times. as of march trump had bombed libya eight times. at least that we know of. the pentagon initially only reported four of those. since 2014 administration said isis has cost more than $14 billion. that's likely an under cut. partly because of president trump's last year was more than 6,000 people killed in strikes conducted by the u.s. led coalition in iraq and sir yachlt that's increase of more than 200% over the previous year. iraq and afghanistan wars, the two main theaters of the two main aumf at issue have come at a price tag of roughly $5

trillion. that's unfathomable amount of money. iraqis killed exceed 200,000, not to mention refugees, generated higher rates of extremist islamic terrorism, undermined u.s. national security in a number of whales. the war in afghanistan continues to it be abysmal failure. back in march, u.s. army general john nickel son said trump's new strategy, quote, new strategy, which includes increased air strikes in marginal increase in troof preference, in other words, not a new strategy at all, is improving the situation in afghanistan. sort of like when his predecessor john campbell, general john campbell said that he too had seen change and improved results. general dump ford back in 2013,

talked about quote inevitability of our success. his predecessor general john allen declared we are winning. dr. david petraeus in 2011, we have reversed momentum of the taliban. success is still achievable. general 2009, the united states is not losing in afghanistan. this routine goes back to 2001. the reality is since the beginning of the obama administration up to now, the war in afghanistan has claimed the lives of almost 30,000 civilians. injured more than 50,000 civilians. taliban currently controls or contests about 45% of afghanistan's districts. they hold more territory today than at any point since 2001. despite 16 years of nation building and throwing resources at the problem, afghanistan's

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 that it has been since 2013. suicide attacks went up 50%. and insurgent attacks over all tripled in 2017. in short, the two existing aumf has 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 push back from congress. now, all of this effort, man power, allocation of resource, all of these hugely consequential and often devastating policies are justified as measures to mitigate the terrorist threat. and given all the terrible costs and negative consequences, the

most relevant question is a side from the legal and constitutional questions, have these policies been successful in mitigating the terrorist threat? have they achieved that objective in some way? now, the first problem with answering that question of course is there isn't much of a threat to begin with, but i'll get into that in a bit. can the policies that these three presidents in a row have been empowered to carry out thanks to the aumf been said to successfully mitigate the terrorist authority? i think it's hard to answer that in affirmative. in some cases short term benefits the drone attacks helped. militants scattered and that hindered their capabilities. but over the long-term, it turns out military force is not all that effective a tool in mitigating the terrorism threat. and in fact there is compelling evidence that our actions have

exacerbated the problem. u.s. nato air war against libya, gaddafi which is the use of force since 9/11 not covered under the aumf hand war obama administration said they don't need congressional authorization for any way, but nevertheless it's an example how military force can create new terrorist threats that didn't previously exist. libya hardly came up on the rar d radar in the theater before they over threw gaddafi. but in the aftermath and weak regime that replaced it, libya has been, terrorism spiked, isis gained a foothold. it's since been on the receiving end of u.s. military action with do you know us legal authority under the aumf. isis to make a more egresssive example, still the group that engenders the most fear and headlines, isis grew out of the

sunni insurgency that fight in the iraq. as general put it, quote, there would be no isis if we had not invaded iraq. as early as 2006, u.s. national intelligence estimate on trends and global terrorism found the iraq war was, quote, shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives. the war had become a cause celebrated for jihadist. the hard numbers bear it out. in 2015, number of fatalities by 2015, the number of fatalities from terrorism in the middle east had increased by a staggering 397 percent since 2001. and in seven countries that the united states either bombed or invaded since 9/11, terrorist

attacks, the number of individual terrorist attacks rose by astonishing 9,000 percent. and so a spike inter rhythm follows u.s. military intervention in these countries. if anything, open-ended authorization for the u.s. military force in the middle east has made us less safe and not more. i fully ask the impulse to ask, what are you suggest we do nothing? and i think there is several responses to that. first of all, there is a sizable academic literature on how terrorist groups ends or fade-away or at least how they have in the past. and they don't tend to emphasize military force. but rather things like political integration, and event you'll moderation. prolonged marginalization with stable security environments and so on. this kind of dries up recruitment and opportunities for violence, go away, and we

need to be realistic about the limits of what u.s. military force can achieve in terms of setting up those conditions. secondly, there is plenty we can do in the realm of law enforcement to tackle terrorism threats but we do need to skrut nice how much of a threat terrorism actually is. and the facts i think present a much more bigger picture than the political rhetoric and hysterical media coverage terrorism we hear about. it's not the existential men as we are told. it's a pretty manageable threat. so first of all, your chances of being killed in a terrorist attack here on u.s. soil are infest continue naturally small. since 9/11 the chances are one in 40 million you are likely to be struck by lightning. if you average it out since the years of 9/11 average of americans killed in the united states by islamic terrorism is about 6 per year.

and if you extract omar, the isis inspired individual who shot up the pulse nightclub in florida, if you take him out of the equation that number would have hafd, so only three would have died in that, but so many died that it shot up to 6 t compared with that 300,000 that died by drugs. or nonterrorist homicides have killed roughly 20,000 americans in the past 30 years, and think of the incredible disproportionate resources devoted to the comparatively tiny threat of terrorism. in fact, try to look up any reputable source that leads leading deaths in the united states, any health organization, you'll find terrorism conspicuously absent, top 10,

top 25, top 100. 9/11 was a traumatic event and led us to miss interpret 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 and not new era of global threat, et cetera. and i think the record and the years since speaks for itself. if you catalog all of the attempted terrorist attacks in the united states since 9/11, from a shoe bomber to the under wear bomber to the times square bomber to fort food to boston marathon, they fall into one of three categories. first category is that the attacker had some operational connection to foreign terrorist groups. and through their own incompetence typically failed to successfully carry out of the attack. think of the genus who lit his

under wear on fire on the flight. these are called isis inspired or lone wolf attacks. and the third category the attacker was induced or in some cases entrapped by under cover informants to conduct a phony plot cooked up by u.s. law enforcement. and the details of those cases you should, i recommend award winning book, terra factor by trevor, it's almost comical what the level of stupidity and ineptitude these would be tache attackers have. and a lot of people think they wouldn't have the ability to conduct the attacks without the fabricated sting operation. isis has never once conducted a

successful terrorist attack here on u.s. soil. there is only such a thing as isis inspired attacks. and guess what, a blank check for war and far off muslim countries does literally nothing to stop these. in 2016, as i mentioned, omar killed almost 50 people in the pulse nightclub. ask yourself how u.s. troops in afghanistan, air strikes in iraq, drone bombings in yemen, air strikes in somalia, special forces raids, so on, how could they have foiled that attack or ones like it? or had any impact on whatever? you might as argue that u.s. military action could have prevented sandy hook? they are not connected. to the extent they are connected, omar said triggering event was bombing of an eye cyst

leader. but he probably would have done it anyway. he was a disturbed individual. but there is this dramatic disconnect by the fear felt here at home by the threat of terror, and actual utility that specific u.s. operations have in preventing attacks here. the taliban is another group specifically mentioned in the new draft but it's not clear why. they are a domestic focused group. they have never engaged in international terrorism. in fact, they are only a threat to americans to the extent we insist ton living amongst them in afghanistan. one of the most isolated plots of territory in the world. and to be fair no one actually claims the taliban is going to come here antique us tore o-- a us or or allies. doing action against them they'll continue to rule afghanistan and be a safe haven where groups like al qaeda and

isis can plot transnational attacks. scholars refer to this to the safe haven myth. it's simply not true that afghanistan would have operation utility for these groups to hatch terrorist attacks against us. and it's kind of a myth that al qaeda preference in afghanistan and leads up to 9/11 was useful in the success of those attacks. the attacks were planned in afghanistan but also in hamburg, germany, florida, malaysia, boston. in this day of instant border less communications, territorial safe havens aren't that operationally useful. and actually they can be a liability. one of the unique things about isis is insists on obtaining territory which is strategically stupid because now we have the target. the benefit the strategic asset of groups like al qaeda is you don't know where they are. so just to wrap up, the national security rational, i think, for

a presidential blank check for global war on terror is extremely weak. contrary to the hysteria that surrounds terrorism, it's a management threat, not a war to be won. the bulk of our post 9/11 military actions have exacerbated this threat rather than mitigated it. and if congress would take our recommendation, they would not replace them with a new era and fresher authorization for war, i don't think it should be confused with tying the hands of the president. as gene said whoever holds that office seeks new specification to defend on new threats on a case-by-case basis. thanks very much. [ applause ] >> thank you both for your fantastic presentations. we'll go ahead and open the floor up to questions now.

for those of you who do have questions, we do have a microphone around here somewhere, so please wait for that to arrive. and please state your name and affiliation. and if you would please stated your question in the form of a question as opposed to a statement. first. >> i thank you so much for coming today. i have a question regarding the associated forces in some of the different proposed aumfs and post 9/11 one. associated forces were a part of that one. i'm kind of wondering to what extent there is a difference in how they are defined and to the scope of that. and the one that senator corker introduced or if associated forces is a part of senator merckly or representative schiff. i haven't looked into schiff or

merckly as i have senator corker one. >> so the question? >> associated forces how they are defined? the various ones and how there -- what differences there are between the post 9/11 in regards to specifically aumfs and the one proposed by senator corker? >> well the phrase associated forces appears no where in the 2001 aumf. it was sort of extrapolation from 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. but what's happened in the decades and a half since, it's been daisy chained out to include groups that are not strictly associated with the original targets of the

resolution, including isis, a group that was excommunicated by al qaeda and actively at war with them. so 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 of a fashion, that you have to be very careful about what associated forces provisions you specifically write into and aumf. off the top of my head from my recollection, in the tightest definition of associated forces, and i don't want to rifle through too many papers here, is in the merckly aumf. did they have to have

cobelligerence with the groups, taliban, isis, and al qaeda, and also includes a provision, and it would be interesting to see what effect this would have, but when there is associated force the president, you know, 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 states, credible threat to attack the united states homeland. so senator merckly will be the narrowest grant of that authority. and senator corker and kaine's, the broadest. it includes, if i recall correctly, that they are engaged in -- expands the definition to include 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's ability to add friends of friends of friends of friends in the way that the 2001 aumf has led to such extensive mission creep. >> back of the room. >> [ inaudible ]. >> thank you for speaking with 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, it's likely to be more and 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 on the s be against precipitous action, so i'm not sure -- that one of the things that does seem to be the most bipartisan, the biggest bipartisan consensus in washington, is for, you know, continued -- is oftentimeses for continued war authority, so i'm not sure that the drift towards more ideological polarization among 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 the responsibility that the constitution clearly

gives it. madison had this idea that set up sort of a self-perpetuating routine where the -- the interests, 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 ends up trying to do what dick cheney said was his goal to leave the presidency stronger than they found it, but it's very difficult to get congress, to get individual congressmen and women to buckle down and care with this core

constitutional responsibility. there's a lot of them. they don't have the individual incentive. it's sort of a shell game for the american voter, you know, trying to pin down who is exactly responsible for 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, for congress to take responsibility and for the system to function as it was intended. >> just a second, that polarization at times can be helpful for constraining war powers. if you 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, you know, there's a lot of things that caused opposition. there was lots of public

opposition and lots of people calling in to their elected representatives and so forth, but the republicans definitely like to oppose whatever obama supported and it might have 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 faining to congreeigning t congress a.m. authority and that's a situation in congress where everyone can say thumbs up or quietly abide because they are not being asked to take responsibility for it. when you put responsibility back in congress' hands, whether there's polarization or not, they tend to take these questions more seriously as

opposed to just evade responsibility and give it to the president. >> additional questions? >> yes. >> my name is max and i'm from congressman mark sanford's office. thanks for putting this all together. much of the war on terror is foughtine line against various jihadist recruiting radicals so does the amuf include war efforts on part of the united states government in fighting this and should it, and should we -- should we concerned about the rights of foreign nationals and then american citizens being caught up into the dragnet of the american states in regards to the amf? >> i kind of wish more of our

wars were fought online. with regard to cyber warfare, that's an interesting and tangled question. i mean, the aumf talks about all necessary and appropriate force, so, i suppose if there were any reason to rage, you know, like a stutnet type, that falls under the rubric of necessary force. for law enforcement and intelligence operations against lone wolves or transnational terrorist-affiliated individuals, you know, you're 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 that congress arguably never contemplated was -- it was invoked a number of times in the bush administration for the so-called terrorist surveillance program, and it -- it had been invoked for the defence of a 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 ought -- than anyone contemplated the initial authorization. if you go back and look at what people in the 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. joe biden who was in the senate at the time saying this is nothing like the gulf of tonkin resolution. we're not saying go pell mell, do anything anywhere, this is much more limited and now it's been in existence twice as long as the gulf of tonkin resolution, and it's hard to tell the difference between just an open-ended wholesale delegation of congress' war authority, so i think that's something that we have to pay attention to even when it comes to areas like surveillance. >> that said, by and large, i think what you're going to find is that the issues are treated differently. authorization for the use of military force i think is more traditionally defined as bombs and bullets and not quite cyber. there is cyber warfare, but most

of i think the use of the internet in, you know, protecting the country from potential attackers, i mean, there's a confluence of bureaucracies from the fbi to the nsa to the cia that operate in that realm, and -- and in many cases with regard to u.s. persons they will need a warrant and they will to go through the process and with overseas people, the gloves are off in any case with regard to the intelligence community in the realm of the internet so i think what you'll find is these things are separate. >> additional questions. this one in the back. >> thank you, guys. my name is jesse. in eisenhower's farewell address he warns guess the war

industrial complex. let me tread lightly on this, but big defense contractors who are located in the districts of very posh influential members of congress on a committee that has a tremendous amount of influence and just like we've seen the tapes of lyndon b. johnson and his military adviser telling him pretty much lies to try to keep him in vietnam. what role, if any, do you think the military industrial complex has-ins keeping the aumf and keeping the status quo? >> so, in my opinion it's much more cumulative the effect of military industrial complex. it's less specific to an aumf or the specific military and the war on terror, but you're perfectly right to point out -- it's always amazed me that, you know, members of congress who in public kind of are very practiced in praising the

military and putting high military officials on a pedestal and then, you know, the generals will get in front of a committee and testify and say, you know, we don't really need money for this weapons system, not relevant to the way we fight and the members of congress, again, who are typically submissive to these people say, well, screw, because it's helpful to me and my district and my campaign money and so that's certainly a factor in less the aumf debate and more the broad scope of the fact that we have a massive military effort in the world. we have 800 military bases in 70 or 80 countries around the world, and we've engaged in more individual military interventions in the past 30 years than 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. i mean, it's in the bureaucratic interests of much of the u.s.

government and the national security realm to inflate threats and pretend like we have existential threats hiding 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 here. why don't you fire half of my staff and demote me and there are bureaucratic and budgetary interests that keep this expansive national security state that we have and prevent a narrowing of the definition of u.s. national interests. >> i think we have time for one more question, if there is one. kurt. >> front row. >> i want to ask a little

something beyond the authorization for the use of military force and ask about authorizations for the use of military cooperation. in chapter 16 of of title 10, 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 powers, and what would you characterize the policy implications as being? >> i think by and large the united states has to rethink its approach to alliances. you know, it uses to be the case that you made alliances to help you fight wars or protect against wars that could be around the corner, and now we just have alliances for their own sake and there's -- and they are supposed to cover lots of things, not just national

security questions. they are supposed to cover democracy promotion and they are supposed to cover intelligence sharing, and they are supposed to cover economic cooperation, and 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 says threats that i think are either insignificant or imaginary is not helpful, and i think it contributes to the ballooning effect of our national security state. >> okay. and that concludes today's event. thank you all for come, and let's gift our speake give our speakers a round of

applause. [ applause ] here's a look at what's ahead today on c-span3. next, a forum on federal climate policy with federal and state officials. after that, portions of a recent cyber security and intelligence forum with a military perspective. comments from federal intelligence and security agencies. and at 7:15 this week's prime minister's questions from the british house of commons. primetime programming begins at 8:00 with a hearing on u.s. foreign policy in europe. the former u.s. special envoy for