President Trump announces plan to rename US Department of Defense to Department of War
US President Donald Trump said he would change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War as before, on the grounds that the name of the department since the 1940s until now is "too defensive".
According to CBS News and CNN, speaking at an event held in the White House Oval Office 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 Department of War during a series of public events at the White House on August 25, including during 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.
Mr. Trump said the name change could happen in about a week. A few hours later, the US President announced that he would let Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decide. "If everyone agrees, we will do it," Mr. 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 approve it 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 U.S. renamed the Department of War to the Department of Defense after World War II as part of a reorganization of the U.S. military that included folding the Army and Navy into a single cabinet-level agency.
The name War Department (which oversaw the Army) had existed since 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 consolidate 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."
