This potentially momentous turn in American history presents the usual spectacle of fecklessness that has characterized the war-powers dialogue at least since the Korean War. It is clear that both the Executive Branch and Congress currently regard the Constitution in this area as an obstacle to be finessed.

What if we thought about it differently? What if we looked at the Constitution as a guide to making better decisions?

Let’s review what the Constitution says on the issue of war and peace. Under Article I, Section 8, Congress has power not only to “declare war,” meaning to change our status on the international plane. It also has the power to “grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal,” which means to allow private persons—the 18th-century equivalent of military contractors—to carry out what seem a lot like covert operations at sea; “to raise and support armies” and “to provide and maintain a navy”; “to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces,” and “to provide for calling forth the militia.” In Article II, the Senate is given the power to advise and consent to the appointment of any military officer.

Can anybody think of an important war power not included in that catalogue? There’s only one: the power to designate a commander in chief. Out of that single power, presidents over the decades have spun the elaborate pretense that they can decide on the use of force abroad, “consulting” Congress when they choose.

It ain’t so. Basically, when the president wants to use the military for anything except immediate defense of the nation, he needs to ask. Asking for authorization step by step is not enough. Any major change in our military posture requires congressional authorization.

Why would the Framers have set the Constitution up that way? Was it because they wanted to prevent executive use of force whenever possible? There’s some evidence to support that view. (Madison said at the Philadelphia Convention that “he was for clogging rather than facilitating war.”) University of Kentucky Professor George C. Herring, in his magisterial history of American foreign policy, points out that small-r republican theory convinced many of the Founders—including both Jefferson and Madison—that a republic had little need for a strong military because America would get its way by using economic sanctions. If you believed that, then you would want to make war an absolute last resort.

But many others at Philadelphia—think of Washington and Hamilton—saw the world in coldly realistic terms, and wanted to forge a nation that could respond quickly and well to foreign threat. If you felt that way, you’d want to set up a structure that would make it possible not just to use force but to use it successfully. Why would such a person want a quarrelsome, faction-ridden Congress to have the lion’s share of war powers?