"Shouldn't oughta we declare war before any Gov attack on some furriner? Huh?"
By no means all the time, and "should" is up in debate-land.
When got "Pearl Harbored" that attack went "off-kilter" from the intended Imperial Japanese plan.
Their diplomat got "the stall," and sat in the White House Hall, as the clock ticked, and hell was about to fall on the US Pacific Fleet.
The Imperial Japanese had this in common with todays Japanese - they like to do things "appropriately" and as professionally as imaginable.
But our intel groups knew they wanted to see us, and did they know that Pearl Harbor would be attacked? No evidence for sure, but enough of what they knew holds out that tantalizing possibility.
We know for sure that we kept them waititng on purpose, and as a result FDR was able to make his historic "Day of Infamy" call to war to the assembled both houses of Congress.
A voice vote for war was thunderous.
All because of an accidental start of the Pacific War without a declaration.
On much smaller scale - before and between the World Wars we, some Europeans, and the Imperial Brits had the habit of landing troops in some vulnerable country and doing pretty much whatever we wanted.
Battles often resulted.
One of our most famous combat officers resulted from such stuff. He was nicknamed "the Lion of Nicaragua." He ran his Marines up and down mountains faster, and more effectively than the natives did. After years of victories, the country was "safe for Big Fruit."
He became disillusioned by the obvious math. And became a pretty lefty retiree as a result -
In more recent days our recent Presidential Nobel Peace Prize winner routinely used a personally approved kill list to send hundreds of hellfire missles via unseen and unheard drone to "statistically likely" targets.
A Dem, a Repub - a Green, who knows? Our power is almost absolute, when considering our power relative to so many other potential opponents.
It takes a strong charecter to stand on the mountain and resist real tempation.
Consider one of those "kinda nano mosquitobot" strikes.
The appearance of unseen death from...what? A cloud of the deadly, tiny bots from the belly of a robot sparrow? Sure, could be. Both the "Carrier-sparrow" and the teeny drones it releases could be zeroing on a some targeted person.
One way to track some Dude would be by following his airborne CO2 plume, just as all "biting" skeeters do in todays "more innocent" age.
Is that harder to imagine than a "hellfire strike?
The sudeen explosion of 100 square feet of meadow, or a house, or Mosque? Relative to human senses, those nearby who survive might only experience the explosion.
Someone a few hundred feet away would be much more likely to survive, and may have noted a momentary very narrow and bright line stretching from the target spot up to the sky.
No war declared. Usually - more usually in the case of our country, for sure. Murderous stuff sometimes in person. Sometimes by shipborne cannon fire. Or air-dropped "dumb" bombs, "smart" bombs and missiles.
The cloud of almost nanosized drones would be much more humane - due to many fewer, probably no collateal damage.
Re: (Mini Drone) weapon In my opinion, Iran has already declared war on Israel, which is tantamount to declaring war on the US. The Ayatollahs are clearly the ones to go after. Drop them, revolution kicks in, and we are done.