2 When was the last time the U.S. actually declared war?
Congress has formally declared war only five times * in American history, most recently during World War II (1941-45). But presidents have sent troops abroad to fight more than 200 times. Usually, there has been some kind of congressional assent beforehand, but not always (see timeline).
"From Washington forward, presidents have engaged in military activities without declarations and without authorizations," Spalding says.
In 1950, the U.S. supplied 90 percent of the troops for a United Nations force to aid South Korea in its war with North Korea. Although 34,000 Americans died in the Korean War, President Harry Truman called it a "police action" and never sought approval from Congress.
It was the Vietnam War that set the stage for today's debates about presidential authority and the military. In 1964, after a murky episode in which North Vietnamese boats were said to have attacked a U.S. destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson asked Congress for authorization to respond. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving Johnson broad authority to escalate the U.S. combat role in Vietnam without declaring war. By the end of the war in 1975, 58,000 Americans had been killed.