I welcome the insightful post by Representative Michael Baumgartner (R., Wash.) about the dangers Venezuela’s Marxist Bolivarian regime poses for our nation and our hemisphere. Largely based on the congressman’s on-the-ground experience, it exposes the inner workings of what he describes as “a permissive hub” at the intersection of “state power, transnational crime, and extra-hemispheric rivals” (I take him to be speaking of our rivals – China, Russia, and Iran-backed Hezbollah – not those of Nicolás Maduro’s regime). Notably, he speaks of Venezuela as a crime capital, not a military threat.
Some observations.
First, Baumgartner’s analysis seems substantially in accord with that of U.S. spy agencies who pushed back against President Trump’s claim – in the Alien Enemy Act (AEA) proclamation, for example – that Tren de Aragua (TdA) is an arm of the regime. The congressman’s “permissive hub” model is along the lines of what our intelligence community describes: the regime has created a structure that allows international criminal gangs to thrive and traffic in narcotics, perhaps with opportunistic participation by some regime leaders but not operational direction by Maduro. Baumgartner does not claim TdA has conducted an invasion of or predatory incursion in the United States. (As I’ve noted, even the Trump administration has quietly retreated from its extravagant early claims, now maintaining that the boats we are bombing in the Caribbean are operated by “nonstate actors” after initially portraying the operators as regime assets. (Nevertheless, the administration is still defending the AEA proclamation in court.)
Second, while he doesn’t make a convincing case that TdA is a terrorist organization (at least as it operates against the United States), Rep. Baumgarten is certainly right that it is a “hemispheric crime … syndicate.” Let’s put the issue of terrorism aside (as I’ve explained at length, under federal law, narcotics trafficking, even at scale, is not terrorist activity). The congressman’s prescriptions – disruption of logistics, finance, and communications; choking off financing and other material support from foreign patrons; maritime interdiction, aggressive anti-money laundering enforcement, and immigration controls – are exactly how we do deal, and should deal, with international criminal syndicates and the rogue regimes that enable them. Our government has frequently and effectively done this for years under an array of criminal and civil laws, without the use of lethal force and resort to the laws of armed conflict.
Third, where Baumgarten loses me is his recommendation that we “keep lawful military force on the table and use it with precision.” For all his quite accurate description of the perils that the Venezuelan regime and the cartels pose, nowhere does the congressman claim that they have militarily threatened the United States. He makes no argument in support of the lawful use of military force; he just assumes that, at present, there is a lawful option. That skips a crucial step.
Fourth and finally, about that step. In arguing the illegality of the ongoing U.S. drone strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels, and the president’s threat to conduct land strikes (and perhaps ground attacks) in Venezuela, I have not claimed that they could not be made legitimate. Congress has the power to declare war and to authorize the use of military force. As a matter of constitutional law, I do not believe the president’s commander-in-chief powers authorize the use of force when the U.S. and our vital interests are not threatened militarily. As a matter of good policy, the further away we are from being threatened militarily, the more the president should seek congressional approval before resorting to lethal force – for purposes of both concretely defining the mission and drumming up public support. (In a democracy, public buy-in is vital to the success of potentially long term missions – we saw what happened when public support flagged in Iraq and Vietnam).
It seems to me that Rep. Baumgarten makes a good case for a congressional authorization of military force against the Maduro regime, if not the alleged drug-trafficking boats. (I’d have added Maduro’s own drug trafficking indictment, which brings us closer to the Noriega precedent for extracting a regime leader – although the case was stronger for invading Panama than it is for invading Venezuela.) But, assuming the current state of play holds and that we are not threatened with military attack, only with congressional authorization could “lawful military force” be an option “on the table.”
So, I ask again: What is the good reason for not seeking congressional authorization for the use of military force (AUMF)? Why is the president going it alone? Why is the Article I branch, in which the Constitution’s war power is reposed, not debating and voting on an AUMF – whether the president asks for one or not?