To set the record straight, UBL declared war on America in 1996. After 9/11 we declared war on a tactic. We got to that point by ignoring we were at war prior to 9/11. If we realized it there is a real possibility 9/11 never would have happened, and the war would have been contained at a much lower level of intensity.

We conduct war now, as others without declaring it.

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL31133.pdf

In contrast to an authorization, a declaration of war in itself creates a state of war under international law and legitimates the killing of enemy combatants, the seizure of enemy property, and the apprehension of enemy aliens. While a formal declaration was once deemed a necessary legal prerequisite to war and was thought to terminate diplomatic and commercial relations and most treaties between the combatants, declarations have fallen into disuse since World War II. The laws of war, such as the Hague and Geneva Conventions, apply to circumstances of armed conflict whether or not a formal declaration or authorization was issued.
I found your example about the Comanche's interesting. I'll have to take your word on the number of U.S. citizens they killed compared to Americans (including Mexicans). Why did they kill so many? Were they perhaps waging war to impose their will, or avoid us imposing our will on them? Why do you think we shy away from calling an armed conflict war? Of all people, I find it odd you embrace an outdated view of war. By your description war can only exist in a classical European sense between states who declare war, and then end wars with a peace treaty. Those will probably still happen, but they are not the only type of war. The quote I provided above were from Chinese officers, yet Russians (and others) see the same way.

https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.c...on-linear-war/

General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation

In the 21st century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared and, having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template
.

People like, for instance, Georgy Isserson, who, despite the views he formed in the prewar years, published the book “New Forms Of Combat.” In it, this Soviet military theoretician predicted: “War in general is not declared. It simply begins with already developed military forces. Mobilization and concentration is not part of the period after the onset of the state of war as was the case in 1914 but rather, unnoticed, proceeds long before that.” The fate of this “prophet of the Fatherland” unfolded tragically. Our country paid in great quantities of blood for not listening to the conclusions of this professor of the General Staff Academy.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/...nting-warfare/

The Kremlin, according to Barack Obama, is stuck in the "old ways," trapped in Cold War or even 19th century mindsets. But look closer at the Kremlin’s actions during the crisis in Ukraine and you begin to see a very 21st century mentality, manipulating transnational financial interconnections, spinning global media, and reconfiguring geo-political alliances. Could it be that the West is the one caught up in the "old ways," while the Kremlin is the geopolitical avant-garde, informed by a dark, subversive reading of globalization?
It's competition, but it isn't peaceful competition. The ends are not simply to gain market share, but rather strategic in nature. Unfortunately, the proposed political warfare paper revisited the Cold War and missed the implications of globalization.