The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated as I understand it by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars.
The United States hoped to stay out of the war. President Wilson immediately declared American neutrality. He said: " It is a war with which we have nothing to do, whose causes cannot touch us."
Universities have been the centerpiece of demonstrations throughout the years, notably as students fought for civil rights in 1960s and protested U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war in the 1970s.
While Belarus has so far not become directly involved in the war, it did allow Russia to use its territory to launch its invasion of Ukraine last February.
Caught between competing claims to the holy land, Balian eventually gets swallowed up in conflict and war, and this, perhaps is where his true test begins.