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‘DARING RUSSIA’: Mike Lee Slams Biden For Ordering Reservists To Active Duty

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1 year ago

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Controversy has not abated over President Biden’s move to authorize up to 3,000 reservists back into active mobilization to support Operation Atlantic Resolve. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) took to social media to give his thoughts on the presidential order in a Twitter thread. He wrote “I’ve been trying to figure out what this means. Bottom line up front: President Biden is arguably walking the U.S. up to the line of war and daring Russia to shoot first.”

The Utah Senator pointed out that a subsection of the law “2.10 USC 12304 gives the President the authority to “augment” the forces of any “named operational mission” to active duty for NOT MORE THAN 365 consecutive days.”

He further explained that “Operation Atlantic Resolve has existed since 2014 and is an official “named” U.S. military mission that deploys forces on a rotational basis mainly to the Baltic states and Poland.”

The Republican lawmaker observed that “Open-source information on Operation Atlantic Resolve from DOD does not suggest any forces are present in Ukraine under this mission. Since conflict with Russia and Ukraine came to blows in 2014, rotational deployments under Atlantic Resolve have been considered a backbone of deterring Russia from crossing NATO’s Eastern flank.”

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Senator Lee opined that “The active-duty activation and deployment of these additional forces is a dangerous provocation, knowing full well NATO’s Eastern Flank is adjacent to active hostilities. President Biden did the same thing at the beginning of the war in Ukraine in 2022, massively increasing our active-duty force presence when we knew hostilities were imminent. But now it’s even more risky because hostilities are active.”

He further added that such action might result in a perpetual operation that risk an endless war by proxy. He wrote “”Not only does this run the risk of further locking us into supporting Ukraine, now the military-industrial complex will say the US military presence is THE one thing preventing Russia from crossing NATO’s eastern border & that we have to maintain such presence indefinitely. This probably means a long-term security guarantee. Another endless war but this time by proxy.”

Senator Lee revealed that “One could argue that unilateral troop activations/deployments like this—into areas of active or imminent hostilities—should be treated as a breach of the War Powers Act. Regardless, this makes me really uneasy.”

When pressed by a fellow Twitter user on how might one go about stopping the presidential order, Senate Lee replied “Working on that now. It’s not easy and very controversial, but we might have to invoke the War Powers Act.”

Another user ask the Utah lawmaker to spell out whether the War Powers Act could truly allow Congress to “pull back” executive directives. Senator Lee responded “In theory, yes. But here’s the problem: [the President] can veto a resolution passed under the War Powers Act, so unless he decides not to veto 2/3 of both houses of Congress were willing to override his veto, it’s not going to work. That would leave Congress with the option of defunding, but that’s tricky too because spending legislation is also subject to presidential veto.”

 

Article 2 Section 2 of the Constitution states that “[t]he President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” In effect, it grants him authority over the armed forces of the country. A major input aside from funding issues that Congress has constitutional authority over in terms of the use of armed forces is that it has the power to declare war and that to make peace two-thirds of the Senate needs to vote in favor of such a peace treaty.



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