In 2003, I was flying my first mission into Baghdad. As we leveled off at cruising altitude, our aircrew discussed the merits and risks of the Iraq war. Only months before, Congress had deliberated and voted to authorize the war effort we were on our way to join. I remember watching the impassioned Senate floor debate on television. As a young second lieutenant at the time, the fact that there was a heated debate over when and how to use force mattered very much to me.
It’s a discussion that our nation hasn’t had in earnest in 13 years. Yet now, after six months of war against the Islamic State, President Obama has finally delivered to Congress a request to authorize a US-led military campaign against the terrorist group. It’s a debate that’s long overdue. Without it, we risk making the same mistakes in how we go to war. Moreover, we increase the divide between those that serve and the population that relies on their service.
The Islamic State is a brutal organization that has beheaded innocent victims and claimed to establish a caliphate; few will dispute the threat it poses to stability in the region and to America and our allies. As Congress grapples with the application of force, some members of Congress will want to include specific limitations tailored to the mission, while others will argue that any limitation ties the president’s hands. In this case, it is a narrow authorization that is needed.
Congress abdicates its responsibility in matters of war by issuing a blank check just as much as it would by not debating at all. A tailored Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, should reflect the administration’s current narrow strategy, one where foreign ground troops are taking the lead rather than our own. A new AUMF should include a sunset to trigger reoccurring debate if that strategy changes.
Such authorizations do not “tie the Commander-in-Chief’s hands,” but rightly require the president to come to Congress for more authority if the mission requires it, compelling Congress to reconvene for additional debate. Having Congress debate war decisions repeatedly and frequently is a far preferable outcome to not talking about it at all.
A congressional authorization can also help close the gap between our civilian and military communities. In a nation where less than 1 percent of the population serves in an all-volunteer force, fewer Americans feel the deeply personal impacts of going to war. Weighty decisions about whether or not to send our troops into harm’s way should generate discussions about service, combat, and sacrifice.
Today, these conversations are too rare and too often limited to war experiences in books or popular films after the fact, when we should be having them regularly at the front end of conflicts, too. The conversation should fill our local papers, coffee shops, and the discourse at cruising altitude in today’s wartime cockpits. In an era without a draft or wartime tax increases at the forefront of the public conscience, debate is a necessary constraint on a nation indefinitely at war. A sunset provision in a narrow war authorization will compel a more frequent public conversation about matters of war, bringing us closer as a nation in our understanding of what war looks like on a personal level.
A healthy dialogue about the use of force is what our framers envisioned when they drafted the Constitution: that Congress debate matters of war before putting troops at risk. It’s time we restore the congressional role in the exercise of military power — the role between service members and their civilian leadership is a trusted, sacred relationship, uniquely American and one we fight staunchly to defend. Troops swear an oath to salute smartly and carry out the mission without question, but it’s the job of our elected officials to strongly question that mission.
Karen Courington is a veteran of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom and a former senior adviser to Senator Tim Kaine. She is a Truman National Security Fellow.