Yes, no, technically, its complicated, because we just… don’t call it a ‘war’ if most of Congress doesn’t have a problem with whatever military action the President has unilaterally directed.

Russia has ‘special military operation’, we have ‘temporary, low level peacekeeping operations’… that then become the Vietnam War and last for over a decade… or… Congress has authorized the use of force to go get the Taliban in Afghanistan, but also uh, we’re gonna stay there 20 years, with no clear or coherent goal or strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution

Basically, uh, War is supposed to only be declared by the Congress, and then the President is supposed to execute said war.

But also, the Preisdent can kinda sorta do some limited military actions without first having a formal Declaration of War… and there isn’t total agreement on what exactly those limits are… basically, almost everytime this happens in American history, it nearly causes a Constitutional crisis, or at the very least, a whole bunch of vigorous debate, and there really is no consistent framework or metric for evaluating whether or not the President did something not allowed, at least when looking backwards at history.

It becomes both a political and legal shitshow every time.

And also, Congress can… authorize the use of military force, with strings attached, limitations… but somehow that is technically not a war, and also there’s no actual mechanism for tugging on those strings and actually enforcing those limitations.

It’s all very straightforward you see, rofl.