Trump Orders Government To Call DOD “War Department”
Photo courtesy PBS News
By Patrick Lewis
President Donald Trump signed the 200th executive order of his presidency, ordering the executive branch to begin referring to the Department of Defense as the Department of War. The administration will also be seeking support in Congress to officially rename the department, since it is something the President cannot do via executive order.
In addition to this, the order also directs agencies and personnel to refer to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the Secretary of War. The order specifically authorizes the names as “secondary titles” for DOD and the Secretary of Defense. It similarly authorizes secondary titles for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, etc.
According to the White House, the order authorizes the terms to be used in “official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch.” It also “directs all executive departments and agencies to recognize and accommodate these secondary titles in internal and external communications” and “instructs the Secretary of War to recommend actions, to include legislative and executive actions, required to permanently rename the U.S. Department of Defense to the U.S. Department of War.”
The last time the term “Department of War” was used was in 1947. The department held the name from its founding in 1789 until 1947, at which point the Department of the War, Department of the Navy, and Department of the Air Force were brought under the new National Military Establishment, overseen by the new position of Secretary of Defense.
The order states, “The name ‘Department of War’ conveys a stronger message of readiness and resolve compared to ‘Department of Defense,’ which emphasizes only defensive capabilities.” Trump and Hegseth have previously said that World War II, after which the War Department’s name was changed to Defense Department, was the last war that the U.S. decisively won.
The announcement, predictably, has been met with mixed reaction from Congress, the body Trump hopes will make his rebrand official.
“It’s hard to adequately plumb the depths of the stupidity of everything that goes into this. Changing the word ‘defense’ to ‘war,’ what signal does it send? Absolutely freaking nothing. It makes literally no difference,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) told NBC News.
Most Democratic leaders and lawmakers have echoed Smith’s sentiments. And while most right-wing representatives and senators are toeing the party line and backing the change, long-time lawmaker Sen. Mitch McConnell seemed to be skeptical (R-KY), saying on X, “If we call it the Dept. of War, we’d better equip the military to actually prevent and win wars. Can’t preserve American primacy if we’re unwilling to spend substantially more on our military than Carter or Biden. ‘Peace through strength’ requires investment, not just rebranding.”
The move has met with largely negative reactions from the Defense Department itself. Politico reported Saturday that high-level officials see the announcement as a political stunt that will cost millions, if not tens or hundreds of millions, of dollars to effect when the hundreds of thousands of DOD facilities and millions of official letterheads, uniforms, and other items are considered.
Republicans in both the House and the Senate have introduced legislation to make the change official, both of which are in the early stages. It is likely that conservatives will work to pass the bills as soon as possible, in case the Republican majority in Congress is lost in 2026.
