A conspiracy theory is, by definition, a secret. That the government routinely ignores the Constitution isn't a conspiracy, just a sad fact. How many wars have we been in over the last 70 years? Vietnam? Korea? Iraq? Afghanistan? Just to name a very few. Read Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. How many times has the Congress voted to go to war? Is this just a conspiracy, or another example of our government's disregard for the document that purportedly grants them their legitimate legal authority? Congress actually voted against going to war against Libya in 2011, but Obama ignored them and destroyed Libya anyway. Conspiracy or disregard for the highest law in the land?
"Authorization for use of military force" is not a declaration of war, despite what the DC blob and their corporate media surrogates would suggest. The whole concept behind checks and balances is that the Congress would retain the power to declare war on foreign nations. Not that they would abdicate their responsibility and pass a bill that gave the executive branch unlimited, undefined warmaking powers.
Legally speaking, what is a war? Can an event look like a war, but is not a war? What are the thresholds for calling an event a war? Is every event involving military action a war?
Congratulations, you just summed up about 30% of Command and Staff College. /s
Professionally, we discuss a continuum of armed conflict, ranging from competition (at the "infrared" end of the spectrum) through limited contingency operations, small wars, hybrid threats, etc. to total war.
The Constitution has built into it certain assumptions about the world. Many of them either hold true or can be legally held true (e.g., there are inherent rights with inherent contours, such as for speech or keeping and bearing arms, that can be determined with historical analysis).
Many cannot hold, and become vestigial and almost meaningless (e.g., a $20 threshold for jury trials in civil cases).
Lastly, many cannot hold... and so the applicability of the provisions they implicate become open questions. It simply isn't the case that only nation-states can engage in armed conflict, or that they always make formal declarations of it (though I'd argue the AUMFs qualify for Constitutional purposes), or that all armed conflict will be at the level of total war.
The substance of the power to declare war is to ensure the President cannot act unilaterally to call up Reservists or engage in conflict; Congress governs. I think that substance continues to be met, given the weave of the statutory scheme (Title 10, Subtitle E; contingency operation appropriations by Congress; AUMFs; etc.).
Certainly not, which is why I only mentioned a few major foreign invasions that involved hundreds of thousands of our troops and killed millions of people.
>What are the thresholds for calling an event a war?
Reasonable people can argue over exactly what that threshold is, but nobody reasonable would deny that our invasions of Vietnam and Iraq qualify as wars.
Indeed! Breathing together in the literal, but breath also carries connotations, as often expressed in the Greek pneuma - the Bible, according to Paul, was "theospneustos", God breathed, the soul is the "pneuma", so conspiring implies an intermingling.
I think the implication is a bit more literal. When you conspire with someone you communicate secretly with them in order to plot and coordinate your actions. You do this by being in very close proximity to them and whispering, so close that you are sharing breath i.e. breathing together.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13908202