So Donald Trump did not ask Congress before ordering American forces to bomb Venezuela and haul President Nicolás Maduro off to New York to face drug-trafficking charges. There is outrage from the usual quarters, constitutional lectures from lawmakers who have tolerated the same behavior for decades, and earnest reminders from Trump critics that “this is not who we are.”
It is, of course, exactly who the United States is and has been.
US presidents have been using force first and looping Congress in later — or not at all — since the Cold War taught Washington that speed mattered more than permission. Trump’s Venezuela move is not a departure from American practice — it is the practice, stripped of euphemism.
The modern template began with Harry S. Truman, who sent American troops into Korea in 1950 without a declaration of war. He called it a “police action,” a phrase that has done a lot of heavy lifting ever since. Congress paid the bills and asked few questions. Lesson learned.
Dwight D. Eisenhower landed forces in Lebanon in 1958. John F. Kennedy approved the Bay of Pigs operation through the back door and imposed a naval quarantine on Cuba without congressional approval. Lyndon B. Johnson bombed North Vietnam first, then asked Congress to bless the war retroactively through the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
The practice sharpened under Richard Nixon, whose secret bombing campaigns in Cambodia and Laos proceeded without Congress being informed. Those actions led directly to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, an attempt to restore congressional authority. In practice, it imposed reporting requirements but set few enforceable limits.
Presidents quickly learned how to operate within — or around — it. Jimmy Carter authorized a military rescue mission in Iran without approval. Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada and bombed Libya, informing Congress after the fact. George H. W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama without authorization, though Congress later approved force for the Gulf War.
By the 1990s, unilateral action had become routine. Bill Clinton ordered air campaigns in Bosnia, Iraq and Kosovo without declarations of war. In Kosovo, Congress declined to authorize the operation, yet the bombing continued under NATO auspices.
After the 11 September terror attacks, Congress handed presidents an especially permissive instrument: the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). George W. Bush used it to justify operations far beyond Afghanistan, including drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Barack Obama relied on the same authorization for airstrikes against ISIS and argued that the NATO intervention in Libya did not constitute “hostilities” under the War Powers Resolution.
Trump merely continued the practice, ordering strikes in Syria and the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani without prior approval.
In Venezuela, the United States has the means. It has the interest — oil has a way of sharpening legal interpretations. It has the will, rooted in a longstanding belief that Washington gets to act as the global enforcer. And it has legal cover, whether by leaning on old AUMFs or insisting the operation did not rise to the level that would force Congress’s hand.
Call it being a backyard bully if you want, but the United States is not alone in acting in ways that expose the weakness of international institutions. The United Nations, in moments like this, looks less like an arbiter than a spectator.
Russia invaded Ukraine because it believed it could. China presses its claims on Philippine waters because it calculates that resistance will be limited. Strong states test boundaries. Weak states appeal to rules that rarely hold.
This is where the Philippines must remove its blinders. Manila invokes the 2016 arbitral ruling and clings to the Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States as a guarantee. But it cannot feign surprise when military powers like China ignore legal niceties. The United States has been doing so, openly and repeatedly, for generations.
You can condemn Trump’s Venezuela move. You can question its wisdom. But you cannot call it un-American. It is American policy, practiced consistently — now simply stated aloud.
The same holds true with Russia in Ukraine and China in the West Philippine Sea. Now, is it coincidence that the United States, China and Russia are permanent members of the UN Security Council? Power, after all, tends to write the rules — and decide when they matter.
It’s no fun playing against the big boys.