Trump signs executive order to rename Pentagon as “Department of War”

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on September 5 renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War, while changing the title of secretary of defense to secretary of war.

The president said the decision reversed what he called a “woke” choice made after World War I and World War II in 1947, when the military’s central department was rebranded, Caliber.Az reports per CBS News. 

“We’re going Department of War,” Trump said, inviting his newly titled “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, to comment.

Hegseth argued the United States has struggled to achieve victory since the mid-20th century.

“The U.S. hasn’t won a war since World War II, though he added he did not intend to malign veterans of more recent wars. ‘It’s gonna fight to win, not to lose. We’re gonna go on offense, not just on defense,’” he said, adding the country will “raise up warriors, not just defenders.”

The Pentagon’s original name change took place in the late 1940s, as part of a postwar effort to reorganize US military bureaucracy, cut redundancies, and remove references to “war” after two global conflicts.

Beginning in the 1790s, the US military was split into two Cabinet-level departments: the War Department, overseeing the Army, and the Navy Department, responsible for naval forces and the Marine Corps. Following World War II, then-president Harry Truman pressed Congress to merge the agencies to “cut costs and at the same time enhance our national security.”

That merger created the post of secretary of defense in 1947, and in 1949 the newly combined structure was officially designated the Department of Defense.

By Sabina Mammadli