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Not relevant? To what, the purposes of this discussion or reality? The realities on the ground in Afghanistan look like war and in Iraq the realities on the ground look like something close to war, but a police action can look like war too.
You asked
Can a terrorist organization declare war on a state and can we as a nation state declare war on a terrorist organization?
The answer is "yes." An act of war does not preclude all entities other than states. War is often waged by mercenary or proxy armies not affiliated with states. If you assume that only states can act in a state of war, then there is no such thing as a civil war because usually in a civil war, at least one side does not have the powers of the apparatus of the state. The recent wars in sub-Saharan Africa for example, which have claimed millions of lives, are almost never formal wars between states, even though the staging and battlegrounds are often trans-national.
I did ask.
I also fully understand that we can be engaged in hostilities that look, taste and feel very much like war without having war been declared. In order for Congress to fund a war must not a war be declared? What else justifies the immense monetary effort in such a situation? where are the controls...the checks and balances over whether we get to enter into war?
War is a legal term as well as anything else, we justify it in the legal sphere.
How does the United States declare war on a non state entity? If only Congress has the powers to declare war what is the mechanism to declare war on terrorism?
Did we actually declare war on Afghanistan and then Iraq?
Congress passed the War Powers Resolution of 1973, to deal militarily with the 20th century threats which if I remember included terrorism at that time.
War Powers Resolution of 1973
please do not misinterpret what I am saying.
As far as the US Civil War goes, the Confederacy set up a legal mechanism that dealt with war legally. And there is a distinction with a difference when we call what transpired, a civil war.
The sub-Saharan situation is often one of massacres and incestual fighting.
Whether the waring factions actually declare war on one another or one side (the government) does is unknown by me. I'd have to research that one.
You do agree there can be battles, as in border skirmishes---transnational and nationally, that are horrendous in their effects, yet remain outside of the scope of what we would call a declared war or even war itself?