President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Sept. 5 renaming the Department of Defense to its previous title, the Department of War, senior administration officials confirmed on Sept. 4.
After Fox News first reported on the announcement, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth substantiated the name change on X, writing, “DEPARTMENT OF WAR.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also confirmed the announcement on X.
“Trump to rename Pentagon, restoring historic ‘Department of War’ in latest military move,” she wrote on Sept. 4.
The president had proposed returning to the Department of Defense’s original name while signing executive orders in the Oval Office on Aug. 25.
“Pete, you started off by saying ’the Department of Defense.’ And somehow it didn’t sound good to me,” Trump said, speaking to Hegseth.
“Defense. What are we, defense? Why are we defense? It used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound. And, as you know, we won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything. Now we have a Department of Defense. We’re defenders. I don’t know.”
Trump had also floated the name change while speaking with reporters at the NATO Summit on June 25.
“You know, it used to be called Secretary of War,” Trump said. “Maybe for a couple of weeks we’ll call it that because we feel like warriors.”
At the same event, the president introduced Hegseth as “secretary of war,” and suggested that the change to the current “secretary of defense” was because “we became politically correct.”
“Maybe we’ll have to think about changing it. But we feel that way,” Trump said.
Hegseth had also called for changing back to the “Department of War” title prior to being named Trump’s Secretary of Defense.
“Sure, our military defends us. And in a perfect world it exists to deter threats and preserve peace,” he wrote in his 2024 memoir, “The War on Warriors—Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.”
“But ultimately its job is to conduct war. We either win or lose wars. And we have warriors, not ‘defenders.’ Bringing back the War Department may remind a few people in Washington, D.C., what the military is supposed to do, and do well.”
When it was first established in 1789, the U.S. Department of the Army was referred to as the Department of War. The agency also had some responsibility over the wartime Navy until the federal government created the Department of the Navy in 1798.
After merging the agency with the Navy Department, Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947, which created the position of Secretary of Defense and established the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. Air Force.
In the early 20th century, the emergence of aircraft in the U.S. military led to the Army Air Service, Army Air Corps, and the Army Air Forces before the Air Force became its own distinct service branch in 1947.
The 1947 National Security Act took the three distinct service branch departments—the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force—and coordinated them through what was briefly known as the National Military Establishment, under the leadership of the secretary of defense.
The National Military Establishment was renamed the “Department of Defense” on Aug. 10, 1949, and absorbed the three military departments.
The National Security Act of 1947 explicitly calls for the agency to be referred to as the Department of Defense.
Jackson Richman contributed to this report.
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