During consideration of protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty to expand NATO to include Sweden and Finland, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered an amendment to add a reservation to the protocols stating that “Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty does not supersede the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war before the United States engages in war.” Article 5 of the treaty, which created NATO in 1949, states, “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them … shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them … will assist the Party or Parties so attacked.”
The Senate rejected Paul’s amendment on August 3, 2022 by a vote of 10 to 87 (Roll Call 281). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because, under the U.S. Constitution, only the Congress may declare war.
