President Donald Trump said Monday his administration will likely move within days to change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War, its title from 1789 until 1947.
Speaking alongside South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, Trump argued the old name better reflected U.S. military history. “Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War,” he said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has pledged to restore the Pentagon’s “warrior ethos,” has also promoted the change, even referring to himself as “Secretary of War” at a NATO summit in June.
The Defense Department was created in 1947 under President Harry Truman, who reorganized the military branches and renamed the War Department the Department of Defense. Any change today would likely require congressional approval.
Trump said he doesn’t want the Pentagon focused solely on defense: “We want offense too.” A White House spokesperson echoed that the president is prioritizing “war fighters” over what it called “DEI and woke ideology.”
Sources
Discover more from News Facts Network
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
