https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-5-2025
"Today President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to rename the
Department of Defense as the Department of War, although the 1947 abandonment
of the Department of War name was not simply a matter of substituting a new
name for the original one. In 1947, to bring order and efficiency to U.S.
military forces, Congress renamed the Department of War as the Department of
the Army, then brought it, together with the Department of the Navy and a new
Department of the Air Force, into a newly established “National Military
Establishment” overseen by the secretary of defense.
In 1949, Congress replaced the National Military Establishment name, whose
initials sounded unfortunately like “enemy,” with Department of Defense. The
new name emphasized that the Allied Powers of World War II would join together
to focus on deterring wars by standing against offensive wars launched by big
countries against their smaller neighbors. Although Trump told West Point
graduates this year that “[t]he military's job is to dominate any foe and
annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, and any place,” in fact,
the stated mission of the Department of Defense is “to provide the military
forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security.”
As Amanda Castro and Hannah Parry of
Newsweek note, in August, Trump said he
wanted the change because “Defense is too defensive...we want to be offensive
too if we have to be.” By law, Congress must approve the change, which
Politico estimates will cost billions of dollars, although Trump said: “I'm
sure Congress will go along if we need that. I don't think we even need that.”
By this evening, nameplates and signage bearing the new name had gone up in
government offices and the URL for the Defense Department website had been
changed to war [dot] gov.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has pushed the change because he sees it as
part of his campaign to spread a “warrior ethos” at the Pentagon. Today he said
the name change was part of “restoring intentionality to the use of force….
We’re going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid
legality, violent effect, not politically correct. We’re going to raise up
warriors, not just defenders. So this War Department, Mr. President, just like
America, is back.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
