I know Congress needs to be involved to actually declare war, but there have been a number of times where something was kicked off by presidential authority alone.
If Biden wanted to, could he start a conflict against Russia without congressional approval. If not, what approval would he need? If so, what would be the theoretical limitations to his power and military authority?
I am already assuming people would want some definition of what “conflict” would mean in this hypothetical scenario. So let’s say it means Biden authorized US troops at the Ukrainian border and had them launching shells into Russia.
If a President wants to fart on the way out, they have a lot of authority. The President alone has sole authority to launch a nuclear strike, with no need for oversight by anyone else, so there are certainly bigger plays than “merely” authorizing ground forces to partake in a conflict.
Recency bias makes everything in the now seem more important, and more uncertain than things in the past were at the time. There are many mitigating factors in a President who is on the way out who orders military intervention out of spite that will make it likely much less catastrophic than you might imagine.