WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday there is a “tortured debate” over whether the United States is at war with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“What I’m focused on, obviously, is getting done what we need to get done to ISIL,” he said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “But if people need to find a place to land in terms of what we did in Iraq, originally, this is not a war.”

Kerry then appeared to reverse himself, saying the actions against the Islamic State do constitute a war in the sense that the U.S. is waging a global battle against al-Qaida and its offshoots.

Whatever terminology the public decides on, the country is not likely to actually go to war — at least not in a legal sense — even if the Obama administration were to change course on its new Islamic State offensive and send in combat troops.

In fact, the U.S. has not gone to “war” since 1942.

Our last official declarations of war were leveled against Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania during World War II. On paper, none of the country’s major conflicts since then — Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan — were declared wars.

Instead, presidents have flexed their executive powers or Congress, which has sole power to declare war, has passed other legislation to allow military operations both big and small.

Once thought a necessary legal prerequisite, war declarations still carry weight under international law but “have fallen into disuse since World War II” on Capitol Hill, the Congressional Research Service reported earlier this year.

It used to be our chosen way to enter a fight. Congress issued 11 war declarations from the War of 1812 to World War II, according to the CRS, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress.

So, what changed?

During the Cold War, anxiety over national security surged and presidents believed they needed more flexibility to wage military action spanning from covert operations to all-out warfare, said Matt Dallek, an assistant professor in the graduate school of political management at George Washington University in the District of Columbia.

“Congress essentially punted on their core responsibilities” and the lines between declared war and various types of military intervention “all blurred together,” Dallek said.

Congress did pass legislation in 1973, called the War Powers Resolution, aimed at limiting the president’s use of military force by requiring time limits and notification to lawmakers. Between the resolution passing and 2003, the White House sent 111 notifications of military action to Congress, CRS reported.

The change has affected the type of battles we fight and our sense of them, he said.

“All of our conflicts, except for the attack by al-Qaida, have been somewhat murkier than the bell that rang with the attack on Pearl Harbor,” Dallek said. “There is no longer a sense the wars we enter are total wars that require sacrifice from the rest of the country.”

President Barack Obama’s new offensive against the IS announced Wednesday may be looking more like a war but will likely follow the legal pattern of other recent conflicts.

The president called for dismantling and destroying the Islamist group in Iraq and Syria through airstrikes, arming and training opposition rebel groups, and support from an international coalition.

Before the announcement, he had already ordered 154 airstrikes and over 1,000 military personnel back into Iraq as of Wednesday.

The White House has argued it does not need any congressional approval for the Iraq strikes, saying they are allowed under a 2001 resolution called the Authorization for Use of Military Force, commonly referred to as AUMF.

The AUMF was passed just a week after 9/11, and gave President George W. Bush powers to strike al-Qaida or any group or nation involved in the attacks. It was used to justify both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the ongoing Afghanistan war — the longest in U.S. history.

Kerry said it still stands in the offensive against the IS, which sprung out of the three-year Syrian civil war and was once associated with al-Qaida but recently shunned by the group.

“This group is and has been al-Qaida. It is the same thing as al-Qaida,” he told CNN.

tritten.travis@stripes.com Twitter: @Travis_Tritten

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