How many times has the U.S. declared war? See all 11 declarations.

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel raises an interesting point. Are we using the War Powers Resolution as a permissive Executive power instead of a restrictive power? The spirit of the legislation was put in place to prevent another Vietnam, but we have entered into other protracted conflicts since the 1973 act (Panama, the Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, et al.)

If one wants some more in depth reading: Declarations of War and Authorizations for the Use of Military Force: Historical Background and Legal Implications
http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/1276 for summary/abstract. Click on “view publication” and it will download as a .pdf file (112 pages).

COL Lee Flemming The thing I find most interesting is that for WWI and WWII, there was a separate declaration of war for each nation. I had always, up until reading this, presumed that when we declared war on Japan, that we had declared war on the Axis Powers. I had presumed that it was one declaration for all. It is interesting to see that the declaration was declared individually. Thanks for the awesome history lesson!