No, 83 senators didn't vote to give NATO the authority to send US to war | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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US President Joe Biden (L) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pose during an event with G7 leaders to announce a Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine during the NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 12, 2023.
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The claim: 83 senators voted to give NATO the power to send Americans to war

A July 21 Instagram post (direct link, archived link) claims a majority of senators voted to give an international coalition the authority to send the U.S. to war.

“Breaking: 83 U.S. Senators voted to allow NATO to choose when Americans will have to go to war,” reads the post from the conservative group FreedomWorks.

It was liked more than 4,700 times in four days.

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Our rating: False

The amendment rejected in the Senate would only have reaffirmed something that has always been the case: In the U.S., only Congress, and not NATO, has the power to declare war.

Only Congress can declare war in US

The "Declare War Clause" of the Constitution – Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 – makes clear that only Congress may declare war in the U.S.

Experts say the defeat of a measure in the Senate does nothing to change that.

The social media post is based on a Senate vote taken July 19 on an amendment proposed by Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul to a defense spending bill.

The purpose of the measure was to “express the sense of Congress that Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty does not supersede the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war before the United States engages in war," according to the statement of purpose included with the bill on the Senate website.

The vote failed by an 83-16 margin.

Fact check: No, video doesn't show NATO troops 'now in Ukraine'

But experts say the votes against the bill do not mean the senators wanted to give NATO any authority over U.S. war declarations, since the Constitution already clarifies this power lies with the U.S.

“Only the United States can decide when the United States will go to war,” James Goldgeier, a professor of international relations at American University and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in an email to USA TODAY.

No mandate in collective defense

Article 5 of the NATO treaty establishes the concept of collective defense – that an attack on one ally is an attack on all.

But there is no mandate for any member to use military force. The first paragraph of that article makes clear that the decision to respond with armed force lies with the members themselves, saying each individual nation may take “such action as it deems necessary.”

Goldgeier called that the “key clause” because it “is where each country, according to its own democratic processes, decides how to respond.”

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., the executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at the Duke University School of Law, addressed the issue in a blog post he wrote in 2016.

Dunlap wrote that the treaty does not automatically require the U.S. to use force to defend an ally, that the U.S. “has always resisted the notion of an ‘automatic’ obligation” and that NATO’s acknowledgment of that is reflected in the specific wording of Article 5.

Goldgeier wrote, “The U.S. Senate never would have ratified the treaty in the first place if it allowed anyone other than the United States to determine when the United States goes to war.”

Article 5 has been invoked only once: after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

USA TODAY reached out to FreedomWorks for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The Associated Press also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: False claim 83 senators voted to let NATO send US to war | Fact check