President Trump announces plan to rename US Department of Defense to Department of War

According to CBS News and CNN, speaking at an event held in the Oval Office of the White House on the afternoon of August 25, Mr. Trump said: "We want to defend but also want to attack, if necessary."

The US leader tested the name of the War Department during a series of public events at the White House on August 25, including a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. Mr. Trump argued that the US had an “incredible history of victory” under the department’s former name, referring to World War I and World War II.

Trump said the name change could happen in about a week. Hours later, the US President said he would let Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decide. "If everybody agrees, we'll do it," Trump said.

Asked whether Congress would need to approve restoring the department's old name since lawmakers had already approved the original renaming, Trump replied: "We'll do that. I'm sure Congress would if we needed to. I don't even think we need to."

President Trump has been hinting at a renaming of the Department of Defense for months, occasionally referring to Hegseth as “Secretary of War.” The Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense after World War II as part of a reorganization of the U.S. military that included the Army and Navy being placed under a single cabinet-level agency.

The name War Department (which oversaw the Army) dates back to the first term of the first President of the United States, George Washington. However, in the late 1790s, Congress created a separate Department of the Navy to oversee the newly formed Navy and later the Marine Corps. The two agencies operated independently for more than a century.

In 1947, then-President Harry Truman pushed to merge the various branches of the military into a single department called the Department of Defense. Truman told Congress that the move was necessary to "cut costs while enhancing the country's national security."