The Ratchet: How America Learned to Wage War Without Permission

212-219.

Korea was a "police action." Libya wasn't "hostilities." Iran isn't "a war."

The War Powers Resolution has never once forced a president to withdraw troops. Fifty-two years. Perfect record.

I wrote about the mechanism that killed congressional war powers -- a ratchet that's been turning since 1950, one click at a time. Each precedent locked. None ever reversed.