In the runup to the presidential election, President Trump was widely viewed as the peace president. He campaigned on a promise to end U.S. involvement in military conflicts around the world.
It hasn’t quite turned out that way.
Through the first five months of his administration, the U.S. military dropped nearly as many bombs as it did during the totality of Biden’s four-year term.
According to data collected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), the U.S. has carried out 529 air attacks since Trump took office on Jan. 20. The bombing raids occurred in 240 locations across the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa, including Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
That compares to 555 air attacks conducted during Biden’s four years in office.
With the release of the report, ACLED founder Clionadh Raleigh said, “The most extreme tool at his disposal – targeted airstrikes – is being used not as a last resort, but as the first move.”
This isn’t entirely surprising. Trump’s rhetoric often fails to match up with his actions.
Trump wasn’t exactly the “peace president” during his first term. While wars in Afghanistan and Syria wound down, he ramped up the fight in Somalia. According to ACLED data, he’s continued the war in his second term, having already overseen 44 airstrikes in the country. The Biden administration carried out 60 strikes in the East African nation.
Trump has also continued the war in Yemen that he oversaw during his first term. At least one attack reportedly hit civilians.
CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTIFICATION
How did the Trump administration justify these acts of war from a constitutional standpoint?
It didn’t.
In fact, as far as I can tell, it didn’t even try. At one time, supporters of such military actions would have engaged in some constitutional gymnastics to justify offensive military actions without a declaration of war. Today, they don’t even do that. It’s just assumed that a president can bomb whomever they please whenever they want, no questions asked.
Without any Congressional restraint, one president after another has dragged America into undeclared war after undeclared war. Sometimes Congress rubber-stamps executive action with unconstitutional, open-ended authorizations to use force. But over the last several years, presidents have even abandoned this formality. As Tenth Amendment Center executive director Michael Boldin once put it, “Give government an inch and they always take a mile. Especially when it comes to war powers.”
Today, most people assume that as commander-in-chief, the president has the authority to initiate “limited” military action without congressional approval. This was not the understanding in the founding era. In fact, the framers of the Constitution carefully separated the decision to make war from the authority to carry it out. James Madison carefully laid out this separation of war powers in his Letters of Helvidius.
“In the general distribution of powers, we find that of declaring war expressly vested in the Congress, where every other legislative power is declared to be vested; and without any other qualification than what is common to every other legislative act. The constitutional idea of this power would seem then clearly to be, that it is of a legislative and not an executive nature…
“Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws.”
The Constitution vests the power to “declare war” in Congress. The founders understood this to mean changing the state of things from peace to war, and this could occur through words or actions. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war.”
Some argue that if another country declares war – whether in word or by deed – this action by the other country changes the state of things from peace to war, empowering the president to act with offensive measures without any congressional input. But this wasn’t how the early presidents understood it. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all deferred to Congress at every step of the way as they engaged other nations militarily.
Washington put it most succinctly when he was asked to authorize offensive action against aggressive Native American tribes on the frontier.
“The Constitution vests the power of declaring War with Congress, therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.”
We can debate the efficacy of Trump’s “peace through bombing” strategy, but there is no question about the constitutionality of such actions. Absent specific direction from Congress, Trump’s bombing campaigns are an unconstitutional power grab, just like the war-making by Biden, Obama, Bush, et al before him. John Jay, the first Supreme Court chief justice, put it this way:
“Until war is Constitutionally declared, the nation and all its members must observe and preserve peace.”
- Parchment barriers don’t stop tyranny - January 6, 2026
- Living Under the Consolidation the Founders Warned About - December 19, 2025
- Fear is the Foundation of Government Power - December 12, 2025