Today, September 18, marks the 23rd anniversary of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).
The 2001 AUMF authorized military force only against the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and those who harbored them. But in the years since, it has been expanded by numerous presidential administrations to justify military operations against more than half a dozen groups around the world. These post-9/11 wars have resulted in the deaths of over 900,000 people and cost the U.S. $8 trillion.
How did we get here? And how can Congress prevent AUMFs from becoming blank checks for war in the future? A new report from FCNL sheds light on those questions.
Last year, Congress seemed to make progress toward reclaiming its war powers authority. A congressional task force led by former Rep. Ken Buck (CO-4) and Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-3) worked on an effort to replace the 2001 AUMF with a more limited authorization. Additionally, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing last September on AUMF reform with high-ranking government witnesses.
Congress must heed the lessons of the 2001 AUMF and the last 23 years of endless war it’s helped enable.
After more than two decades of endless wars, Congress finally appeared to be taking steps toward reeling in the executive branch’s ever-expanding war powers.
However, these efforts quietly dissipated following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s war in Gaza, which has now killed more than 40,000 Palestinians and sparked escalating violence across the region.
Despite the current pause, efforts to address the 2001 AUMF will no doubt pick back up again in the future. When they do, it is critical that members of Congress heed the lessons of the 2001 AUMF and the last 23 years of endless war it has helped to enable.
In our new report, we analyzed all past AUMFs and the types of limits included in them. Contrary to declarations of war, which authorize “total war,” AUMFs by nature, authorize a more limited use of force. The report finds that most AUMFs include clear and specific limits on at least one of four criteria:
- Who the target is (“named enemy”)
- The geographic scope of the AUMF (“geography”)
- The time for which the authorization is active (“duration”)
- The kinds of actions that can be taken (“operations”)
Sixty percent of AUMFs include two or more of these limits. The 2001 AUMF is unique in that it is the only AUMF in American history to not possess any of these four clear limits.
This deviation is key to understanding how successive administrations have been able to exploit the 2001 AUMF to justify military actions against groups and in countries that Congress never contemplated, let alone authorized. Any future efforts to replace it with a more limited authorization must reflect on these lessons.
For many years now, FCNL has worked to sunset the 2001 AUMF, repeal the 2002 Iraq War AUMF, and move the nation away from war.
Continuing to pass AUMFs without clear limits will only serve to cede more and more of Congress’s power to the executive, undermining the separation of powers determined by our Founders.
Congress must restore these vital checks and balances in any 2001 AUMF revision and all future AUMFs by placing clear limits upon them. These limits are critical in putting the nation back on a path to peace.
