Department of WAR
A historically inaccurate bit of symbolic silliness.
NYT (“Trump to Sign Order Renaming the Defense Department as the Department of War“):
President Trump will sign an executive order on Friday renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the White House said, fulfilling the president’s pledge to realign the mission of the armed forces by reverting to a name used for over 150 years until shortly after World War II.
The measure, which has been expected for some time, underscores Mr. Trump’s efforts to reshape the military to align with his goals of projecting a more aggressive image by showcasing war-fighting capabilities.
As Mr. Trump has sought to show strength, rather than the “wokeness” that he and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claim clouded the military’s morale and mission under former President Biden, he has often referred back to the country’s dominant role in global conflicts and complained that it has not been celebrated enough.
Mr. Trump’s plan to sign the executive order was first reported by Fox News.
Mr. Trump first floated the idea in August in the Oval Office, saying it sounded “like a better name” and that he believed “we’re going to have to go back to that.” He said the name change would be a reminder of the country’s record of military victories under the old name, citing World War I and II.
Fox News (“Trump to rename Pentagon, restoring historic ‘Department of War’ in latest military move“):
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Friday to alter the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, reverting to the agency’s former namesake, Fox News Digital has learned.
Both Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have recently indicated they want to change the name of the agency. It is one of several initiatives the Trump administration has spearheaded as part of its “warrior ethos” campaign within the Pentagon.
A White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital Thursday that Trump would roll out the name change Friday. The executive order calls for using the Department of War as a secondary title for the Department of Defense, along with phrases like “secretary of war” for Hegseth, according to a White House fact sheet.
The order also instructs Hegseth to propose both legislative and executive actions to make the name permanently U.S. Department of War.
Likewise, implementing the order will require modifications to public-facing websites and office signage at the Pentagon, including renaming the public affairs briefing room the “Pentagon War Annex,” according to a White House official. Other longer-term projects also are in the works, the official said.
The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols (“Pete Hegseth’s Department of Cringe“) is not impressed.
Last month, when the plan was still just a hypothetical, the president was asked why he favored it. He said that Department of War “just sounded better” and that it would be a callback to the name under which U.S. forces fought in the two world wars. But the change is also a reflection of how much Trump and Secretary of Defense (his title for now) Pete Hegseth think of themselves as tough guys, real fighters who will no longer trifle with silly names about “defending” things. Hegseth in particular is obsessed with “warfighters”—a clunky Pentagon term that’s been around for far too long—who will engage in “warfighting” with great “lethality.”
[…]
It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.”
These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.
As he rightly notes, pretty much every country—allies and adversaries alike— has ministries of defense, not war, at this point.
For what it’s worth, the Defense Department was never the War Department. DOD did not exist prior to its creation in 1949.
During the War for Independence and under the Articles of Confederation, military affairs were run by legislative committees. Under the Constitution, we had two executive agencies, the War Department (which housed the Army) and the Navy Department (which housed the Navy and Marine Corps).* Coordination problems during World War II led President Truman to propose consolidation of the services under one department.
After two years of wrangling, and a rear guard effort by the Navy and Marine Corps to undermine their commander-in-chief, Congress instead created a four-headed monster via the National Security Act of 1947. The War Department was separated into a Department of the Army and a Department of the Air Force. The Navy Department remained intact. Additionally, a Secretary of Defense was put in charge of something called the National Military Establishment. The four secretaries, naturally, were co-equal.
Surprisingly, it only took two years for everyone to realize this was idiotic. A 1949 amendment to the National Security Act created the Department of Defense, led by the Secretary of Defense, and made the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force subordinate agencies.
*As a technical matter, the War Department managed both army and naval matters before the 1794 creation of the Navy Department. The difficulty of doing so was mitigated substantially by the fact we had neither a Navy nor any warships. The forerunner of what would become the Coast Guard was under the War Department, though.
I’ll put this in the same category in my mind as the Gulf of America.
Putting the lie to the people who considered Trump the peace candidate of 2016.
Once again, marketing and branding prevail. One of the rare areas in which Trump isn’t laughably and woefully ignorant. This also plays to Hegseth’s strength (smug and stupid) as a reality show actor playing the role of cabinet secretary.
Not a fan of Tom Nichols, but, “ It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move.” is a great line. You can’t really object to the harm done by this, as it has essentially no utilitarian effect. But it’s so absurdly stupid.
This is clearly a surefire way to get that Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s as the Framers intended…
“We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for War,…”
Some people say they have epiphanies in the shower. But I’m guessing that War and Warfighter became clear to Hegseth and Trump while they were in their respective makeup chairs.
Even better when Trump is deploying the Department of War into American cities.
Hegseth thinks warfighter sounds tough, but it’s basically a politically correct term most commonly used to insure inclusiveness when referring to personnel from any or multiple branches of the armed forces.
Department of Cucks would be a more accurate rebrand for its Hegseth era. Seems Tariff Man was up all night, crying jealous heartbreak into his pillows, staining them with orange fake tan:
“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together! President Donald J. Trump”
Breaking up is hard to do, h/t Neil Sedaka. Especially when a) the mutual commitment was all in your head, and b) he immediately flaunts his rebound fling. I’ve been there. I feel the president’s pain.
The poor, grasping fool doesn’t realize “we” never had Russia. Putin’s been waging hybrid warfare against Western democracies for 15+ years. One would think these attacks might concern the right’s alpha antiwoke warfighters.
As to India’s adultery, Donald pushed them into this affair via MAGA immaturity, insults, and the ignorant tariffs also worsening inflation, killing jobs, and harming businesses right here at home.
Maybe Trump Republicans should finally give our actual allies (Ukraine, the EU, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Mexico etc) proper support and respect? Surely Zelenskyy can exploit this. “I never liked him! You were too good for him anyway. You’re better off without him!”
It does sound a bit better than “Department of I Have an Abnormally Small and Misshapen Penis and I Must Compensate Somehow!11!!11!!!1!1”
Department of WAR with the caps would be better. I’m sure Xi is cowering under a blanket right now in fear. A brilliant move by our Maximum Leader! Hail Trump!
When was the last time the DoD undertook a sizeable action that wasn’t (a) offensive and (b) outside the Western Hemisphere? From my (probably naive) civilian perspective, the Department is almost all about conducting foreign wars.
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”
Surely, Trump has some kind of “strange love” for this country.
Clown show. The entire administration is a parody of a farce of a satire of governance.
Meanwhile, on our dime:
I once read a book called “In Search of the Warrior Spirit”. It was a memoir written by a guy who teaches Aikido of the time he spent 6 months teaching Aikido to a Special Forces Unit. At the same time, as a training experiment, they had someone else in to teach them meditation.
The soldiers thought the training (in Aikido) had value for them and their mission, but the reception was mixed, and could be encapsulated by the following scenario.
Aikido teaches empathy and runs on empathy and blending with one’s opponent. In a SpecFor typical scenario, they are inserted into enemy territory and asked to create an observation post, and report on enemy movement and disposition.
In that scenario, they could imagine their hiding place (the OP) being discovered by a child, perhaps a little girl. Their duty, as they understood it, would be to kill the child.
Now it’s fair to say that they weren’t too happy about that, but understood the issues with mission.
The critique of Aikido is that the emphasis on empathy would make it harder to carry out their duty in the above scenario.
I can’t say for sure they are wrong, though this is *cough* a common misunderstanding of empathy. The empathy that is functional and used in Aikido (and also in my martial art, jujitsu) does not have any attached morality, though people often say that it does.
However, this is a discussion that seems appropriate to me to be having at this point in our progression as a country and a people.
AND, we are having it in the worst, most cartoonish, way possible. Which is typical Trump. It’s all about looking good, not being good.
This is one of the most pathetic attempts to sound tough I have seen from this administration. Weak tea, mild sauce, white bread, childish nonsense. Sad, really.
Consider an alternative: The Department of Peace.
Now that’s a name that could inspire genuine fear. Orwell knew what he was doing. “US Department of Peace is drawing up invasion plans for Venezuela.”
And it makes Trump’s desire for a Nobel Peace Prize deeply disturbing.
Even the fine folks at Hasbro understood this, as the original Megatron’s box claimed his motto was “Peace Through Tyranny!” (His actual motto was “Decepticons, Retreat!”)
@Jay L. Gischer:
Which reminds me, is there a statute of limitations on murder in N. Korea? Although I suppose that’s a moot question as I doubt we have an extradition treaty.
@Michael Cain:
Oh, that’s unfair!
We defend ourselves by applying the overwhelming force of the only superpower on people with little to no capacity to defend themselves or retaliate. Did you not see how we defended ourselves against that Venezuelan motorboat? Have you forgotten how we turned back the Iraqi invasion of the East Coast? And what about Granada and the threat of, um, I’m going to say, under-prepared medical students? Have we had any trouble with the Vietnamese people after we defended ourselves against them? No, in fact, our defense was so effective we didn’t even have trouble with Vietnamese people before our defensive actions. Or, ever.
@gVOR10: Yeah, that story is what made me recall the book.
Regarding that, I can’t but wonder if someone in the current administration leaked the story, thinking it made them look good (and badass).
@DK:
I wonder how the idiot “neo-realists” are going to try to spin this.
Annoying allies, pissing off “winnables” and “neutrals”, and whining around one of your main adversaries after a “deal”.
Such a very stable genius indeed.
The whole Department of War dimwittery is yet another instance of Trumps “kayfabe barking = policy” approach.
And the MAGA base will cheer it so long as it “pwns the libs”.
Ignoring the reality that serious conservatives in other countries regard as utterly bugf@ck nuts.
@Michael Reynolds:
imuho, the last truly substantial and effective US president in terms of international and security policy was Truman.
All his sucessors have been living on his legacy, and periodically doing their darndest to screw it up (if often unintentionally).
The Marshall Plan, NATO, the GATT, the World Bank and the IMF, oversseing the democratisation of West Germany and Japan, supporting the first steps towards European trans-national integration, encouraging the transition from empires, containment of the Soviet Union without war, cementing a peacetime military capable of “extended detrrence”, global alliances and supporting bases, not being a total ass over China despite some Republican headbangers, etc etc.
The man’s legacy is epic, and underpinned the US leadership and Western solidarity that eventually ended the Soviets, while avoiding general war, and laying the foundations for the OECD economic system that has, desoite hiccups, provided the greatest expansion of human prosperity and general welfare in all history.
(Yeah, I’m a Harry Truman fanboi, lol)
Though I may be being a bit unfair to George Bush 1, and Bill Clinton, who managed the end of the Cold War and the maintainance and expansion of that global system reasonably well, despite quibbles.
@JohnSF:
Partly Truman was the one who had to deal with the aftermath of WWII, while latter presidents didn’t get the chance to. One can imagine what if they had.
For instance, if El Taco had been FDR’s VP, the war would have gone on for three or four years longer, while he insisted he alone could get a deal with hitler and Hirohito, and France and China would have to give up some territory*. He’d have ordered cavalry charges, too, as his Pappy had done in the War of Northern Aggression. In the meantime he’d have so alienated Churchill and stalin, that perhaps the latter would consider a second non-aggression pact with the nazis, and the former would have stolen Little Boy and dropped it on Berlin.
*I don’t think the timing works for that, but it would be typical Taco to give up land the Allies had liberated.
@Kathy:
Just contemplate the Orange King as President in 1940 and shudder.
“So, my friend Adolf, who’s been very good to me, just wants a deal. The Brits just have to be reasonable about this …”
UK sez f@ck this, and goes full bore on TUBE ALLOYS.
El Orangio threatens to invade Canada to halt the project.
The King in Orange announces an “understanding” with Germany.
Project relocated to Australia.
Five years later, UK nukes Berlin and Washington.
Hmm?
(Actually, more likely, UK loses Battle of the Atlantic, capitulates, five years later Germany, having gained TUBE ALLOYS data, nukes Washington)