Following the White House announcement that by executive order, the Department of Defense is being named The Department of War, it stands to reason why the nation would rename the department.
Current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth first said the plans to rename the agency he heads the ‘Department of War’ were coming soon at an August 2025 press conference. Law currently shows it is a very murky area of interpretation of the executive branch has sole authority to change the name of the department without congressional approval.
Insider reports have maintained the current US president, Donald Trump, didn’t think the name Department of Defense sounds good to him and thus needs to be changed to something else.
The president then went on to say: “It us to be called the Department of War. It had a strong sound. And as you know, we won World War I. We won World War II. We won everything.”
After the perils of World War II, when the Greatest Generation reflected on lessons learned from a global war that they hoped to be the last, they set forth and changed the name of the Department of War to the Department of Defense. In doing so, the position that Hegseth currently holds, the Secretary of Defense, was created. These changes were approved not by the president, but by Congress, both House and Senate in the landmark National Security Act.
Trump defense the idea making it clear he doesn’t want to be named something that sounds like ‘defense’ only, but has the name ‘War’ to show the US will commit to ‘offense’, or, war.
President Trump campaigned on being the president to end wars and the Russian-Ukraine war in his first day of office and is now currently pushing to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War and renaming Hegseth as the Secretary of War.
