Military Intervention Amendment

[American2020]

Proposed amendment

Section 1:
Any military intervention must be approved by 4/5 of congress members.
Any military intervention must be approved by any multilateral organization.

Section 2:
Military intervention should be conducted in case of the following conditions:
-Direct attack
-Attack on allies
-Humanitarian disaster
-Mass massacre or genocid
-Last resort
-Citizens evacuation

[Mr. Smith]

No, because Section 1 sucks.

[American2020]

I understand.
What do you propose ?

[dead0man]

MormDem doesn't debate, he just sh**ts and leaves (at least today in Constitution and Law)

But he's right, section 1 sucks.  It's fine the way it was before the Cold War, when Presidents didn't have so much power, lets go back to that?  POTUS has to ask Congress if the action meets certain size and/or time requirements seems like a good start.

[Dereich]

Its never a good idea to overly tie the government's hand at foreign policy, especially in ways that every potential enemy would know about and could exploit. Plus, situations can develop very quickly in such a way as to make seeking congressional approval, which would require them to set aside time for the question or to come back into session and then set aside time for the issue, several days of debate and then possibly backroom trading and negotiating to get approval. In the first six weeks of the Rwandan genocide 800,000 people were killed. In a situation like that, adding I'd guess a minimum of a week on before even starting intervention could mean hundreds of thousands of lives.

Section one is ambiguous; do both requirements need to be fulfilled or only one? You might think its obvious but its something government lawyers would notice and exploit to its fullest. Is that 4/5ths of the Senate, the traditional foreign policy chamber? 4/5ths of the House? A joint session? What exactly constitutes a military intervention? Would the raid on Osama Bin Laden's Pakistani hideout itself constitute a separate intervention? How about the US providing mostly logistical support to another country as they intervene, such as with the French intervention in Mali a few years ago? And as for "any multilateral organization" you're just setting up an easy opportunity for the US to form some shell like the "US-Tuvalu civic association" or something to agree to any intervention the government wants.

As for section two, the use of the word "should" will lead the government to rightly say "these are just guidelines and are non-binding." Individual words in the constitution are given great weight and are all treated as being used intentionally by their framers. Again the specifics are ambiguous, but that's not your fault; its hard to encapsulate bright lines when reality is so diverse. Let's assume Russian hackers use cyberattacks to shut down US banks. Is that a "direct attack"? How about if China launched an invasion of Taiwan. We don't even have formal relations with them; would it count as an attack on an ally? Almost anything could be called a "humanitarian disaster": Bush could have argued he was intervening in Iraq in 2003 to stop suppression of Iraqi Kurds and there would be no authority to say he was definitively wrong. He could have also called the Iraqi government mass murderers; technically true. And I'm just not sure what "last resort" means. As I've pointed out in other threads, technically after Pearl Harbor war wasn't the "last resort" since we might have been able to avoid it had we ended the embargo and run with our tails between our legs.

[Green Line]

Hell no. 

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Proposed amendment

Section 1:
Any military intervention must be approved by 4/5 of congress members.
Supramajorities suck and, sometimes action needs to be taken more quickly than Congress can act. While the constitutionality of the War Powers Act is suspect, the 60 day rule it has (as far as the general principle. not necessarily the specific time frame) is a good idea, letting the executive act quickly for minor incidents while still leaving major actions needing Congressional approval.
Any military intervention must be approved by any multilateral organization.
This is so easy to circumvent if desired. and also does this mean that if we get the Universal Postal Union to agree, we can go invade Anchuria?

Section 2:
Military intervention should be conducted in case of the following conditions:
-Direct attack
-Attack on allies
-Humanitarian disaster
-Mass massacre or genocide
-Last resort
-Citizens evacuation
Violence is always the last resort of diplomacy, but it's inclusion here means that this section is about as useful as the preamble to the Constitution. It sounds pretty, but it's ultimately meaningless.

[Lincoln Republican]

Section 1 ridiculous

Section 2 sensible

[Green Line]

Taking away the ability to launch preemptive strikes would be the dumbest thing in the world.  We need to treat the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.

[TJ in Oregon]

A 4/5 majority is effectively impossible in a post-Obama world where the parties literally hate each other more than most countries we'd be at war with.

Plus, ceding control of our military to an international body means we effectively lose control of our own government. Someone could literally invade us partitions of Poland style and as long as the international body (the UN?) remains gridlocked we couldn't fight back.

[publicunofficial]

You couldn't get 4/5 support in Congress to rename a post office, let alone go to war.

As for the second section, it'd be easy for any politician to justify any military action and make it fit the criteria in some way or another. "Last Resort" especially is a very bendable clause.

[I’m not Stu]

Yes, except part 2 of section 1. Multilateral organizations (like the UN) can sometimes be wrong.

[CMB222]

4/5 of congress is way too high to grant military intervention.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

4/5 of congress is way too high to grant military intervention.

-Do you even know how Congress votes on these issues? Ever heard of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution? 4/5 is not anywhere near too high. 95% might be too high, and even there, I doubt it.

I strongly approve of the amendment, especially the first section.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I was just thinking of an amendment to inhibit the ability of the government to wage war. Eharding is right though; it is surprisingly easy to get Congress on board to invade other countries.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Just give Congress control of declaring war again. This modern age Presidential intervention nonsense is destructive.

[Sumner 1868]

If anything it doesn't go far enough.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

4/5 of congress is way too high to grant military intervention.

-Do you even know how Congress votes on these issues? Ever heard of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution? 4/5 is not anywhere near too high. 95% might be too high, and even there, I doubt it.

I strongly approve of the amendment, especially the first section.

Congress is a lot more polarized than over half a century ago

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

4/5 of congress is way too high to grant military intervention.

-Do you even know how Congress votes on these issues? Ever heard of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution? 4/5 is not anywhere near too high. 95% might be too high, and even there, I doubt it.

I strongly approve of the amendment, especially the first section.

Congress is a lot more polarized than over half a century ago

-I've considered that suggestion and I have rejected it. Congress is all too willing to go to war, even today.

[Enduro]

Can you elaborate on what the second part of section 1 means?