During consideration of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2226), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered an amendment “to express the sense of Congress 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.” Under Article 5, member nations of NATO “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 July 19, 2023 by a vote of 16 to 83 (Roll Call 191). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because according to the U.S. Constitution only Congress has the authority to declare war. U.S. membership in NATO increases the likelihood of the United States being dragged into a war that neither the American people nor Congress wants. Rather than allowing NATO and its UN parent to determine when we go to war, we should get out of both organizations.
