Trump symbolically changes Department of Defense to ‘Department of War’

United States President Donald Trump has signed an order changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War in all executive statements.

In a signing ceremony from the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said the name change was part of a larger shift away from a “woke” ideology within the department. He added it would beckon in a new age of military victory.

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“So 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 the name to Department of Defense,” Trump said.

“We should have won everywhere. We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct or woke.”

Administration officials said the name “Department of War” would be used in official White House correspondence and public statements. But a more permanent change would require Congress to pass new legislation.

To that end, Trump added he would ask Congress to codify the name into law.

The new name has been widely interpreted as a reflection of a more aggressive foreign-policy posture under President Trump.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has overseen bombing campaigns in Yemen, Iran and the southern Caribbean Sea.

Those military actions come despite an inaugural promise to be “a peacemaker and a unifier” while in office.

The new name, however, has historical roots. The Department of Defense was previously called the Department of War from 1789 to 1949.

That name change — to Department of Defence — followed World War II, when Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947, which consolidated the branches of the US military under a single civilian-headed department.

Historians say switching to “Department of Defence” was also meant to signal an emphasis on preventing war amid the new threat of nuclear destruction.

At Friday’s ceremony, Trump suggested the latest name change was related to the US’s dearth of military victories in recent decades.

“ We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct or woke-y. And we just fight forever,” Trump said, presumably reflecting on so-called “forever wars” like the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We wouldn’t lose really. We’d just fight. Sort of tie. We never wanted to win — wars that, every one of them, we would’ve won easily with just a couple of little changes.”

‘Maximum lethality, not tepid legality’

As a result of Friday’s executive order, the US secretary of defense will also be referred to as the “secretary of war”.

The current occupant of that role, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, was at the signing ceremony, and he offered some words of support for the name swap, saying it helped with “restoring the warrior ethos”.

“The War Department is going to fight decisively, not endless conflicts. It’s going to fight to win, not not to lose,” he said.

“We’re going to go on offense, not just on defence. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.”

Trump has made several name changes since taking office, including dubbing the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” in federal documents.

He has also undone changes that saw military sites named after Confederate officials baptised with new monikers.

His administration, for example, stripped the name “Fort Liberty” from an army base in North Carolina and returned its Confederate-inspired name, “Fort Bragg”.

However, instead of referencing the Confederate General Braxton Bragg, Trump’s team said the restored name would now honour a World War II paratrooper, Roland Bragg, instead.

“Can you believe they changed that name in the last administration for a little bit? But we’ll forget all about that, won’t we?” Trump said at a speech in June at the army base.

“I don’t know if it could be the same place. Fort Bragg is in. That’s the name, and Fort Bragg, it shall always remain.”

Trump credited the reversal to superstition, but his administration has also moved to reverse course on diversity initiatives that sought to make the military more welcoming to different demographics.

Friday’s pledge to take a more war-forward approach also comes within days of a deadly aerial strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the international waters of the Caribbean Sea.

Trump and his top officials have promised to conduct more extrajudicial strikes on alleged criminals, whom they call “narco terrorists”.

Experts have said such strikes have scant legal basis and raise the risks of civilians, including fishermen and migrants, being targeted.

Speaking on Friday, Trump said that boat traffic in the area of the strike, which killed 11, has been down since.

“I don’t even know about fishermen,” he said. “They may say, ‘I’m not getting on the boat. I’m not going to take a chance.'”