DoD officially renamed ‘Department of War’ with Trump’s executive order
WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an executive order Friday seeking to restore the Department of Defense’s name to the “Department of War.”
“I think it sends a message of victory,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s a very important change because it’s an attitude.”
The name Department of Defense has been used since 1949 pursuant to legislation signed by President Harry S. Truman. Before that, the War Department had been the cabinet agency overseeing the nation’s military for nearly 160 years.
Trump said that he believes the rebranding won’t cost much money and that he doesn’t think he needs congressional approval, but that he will seek it anyhow.
“I’m not sure they have to. We’re signing an executive order today, but we’re going to find out,” Trump said. “We’ll put it before Congress.”
Trump contended that the Cold War-era renaming had undermined the military’s effectiveness.
“We won the First World War. We won the Second World War. We won everything before that and in between. And then we decided to go woke and we changed it into [the] Department of Defense,” Trump said.
Newly rebranded War Secretary Pete Hegseth, appearing with Trump in the Oval Office, said that “words matter” and that “we haven’t won a major war since” becoming the Department of Defense.
“That’s not to disparage our war fighters, whether it’s the Korean War, Vietnam War, or our generation of Iraq and Afghanistan — that’s to recognize that this name change is not just about renaming. It’s about restoring,” Hegseth said.
“The War Department is going to fight decisively. … It’s gonna fight to win, not to lose. We’re gonna go on offense, not just on defense, maximum lethality, not tepid legality, violent effect, not politically correct. We’re gonna raise up warriors, not just defenders.”
“We’re going to set the tone for this country,” Hegseth added.
“America first, peace through strength, brought to you by the War Department.”
Plans to change the name received some Democratic criticism.
“Why not put this money toward supporting military families or toward employing diplomats that help prevent conflicts from starting in the first place?” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who lost both of her legs in a helicopter crash during the Iraq War, told Reuters.
“Because Trump would rather use our military to score political points than to strengthen our national security and support our brave service members and their families — that’s why.”
Trump made the renaming official after announcing the bombing of an alleged Venezuelan drug-running boat Tuesday, killing 11 occupants, and referenced his June 22 bombing of Iranian nuclear sites — saying decisive action was key to restoring US power.
“It was a perfect attack, and it knocked out any possible nuclear capability for Iran, which nobody wanted to see, and we weren’t going to put up with,” Trump said.
“This is something we felt like long and hard about. We’ve been talking about it for months,” the president said.
“We should have won everywhere,” Trump said of past conflicts.
“We could have won everywhere, but we really chose to be very politically correct or wokey, and we just fight forever,… We just fight sort of tie. And we never wanted to win wars that every one of them, we would have won easily with just a couple of little changes or a couple of little edicts.”
Trump currently is a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced Oct. 10, and he argued that the renaming wasn’t at odds with his attempts to broker peace in world conflicts, including successfully ending fighting between India and Pakistan and Cambodia and Thailand and presiding over the end of long-running conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“I’ve gotten peace because of the fact that we’re strong and we weren’t strong. The seven deals I told you about, the seven wars… They happened for two reasons, trade and our strength,” Trump said.
“Those are the two reasons, and probably strength may be more important than trade.”