to play the devil's advocate (I'm no fan of the Trump administration), I'm pretty sure most politicians have used the word "war" for military actions that were never officially declared. The Vietnam "war", for exampleI understand that. I never said it was a new thing. And there are some things you have to do in the name of the country covertly. Our ships flying our flagas and our uniformed military aren’t doing their stuff covertly in most cases.
The point I was making was that the President and his Party sometimes say “its war” and othertimes they say it isn’t. There shouldn’t be any ambiguity from the commanders.