And this is a good thing. Declarations of war makes war a legitimate thing. In the past it was a noble and goodly thing to do, all of the correct paperwork has been submitted and so now it's good and proper for you to go over there and kill those people that have different uniforms.

Also a declaration of war means going from 0 to 100 on everything. There's no escalation and also no de-escalation. Probably not a good thing to instantly go 0 to 100 once nuclear weapons became a thing.

People often decry how war is no longer a legitimate thing because there's no longer declarations of war. The reality is, war never was a legitimate thing. Declarations of war were just powerful people making the act of sending people out to kill and be killed seem legitimate.

Yes, the "special operations" and "coalitions of the willing" stuff is bullshit. But so were declarations of war. It's better you think about whether a military action is actually needed rather than believing a war is proper simply because the people in power did the paperwork correctly.

Classic war just doesn't have any appeal these days