Washington (TDI): US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to be referred to once again as the War Department, reviving the title that was retired more than seven decades ago.
At a White House ceremony alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the president said the switch better reflects American power and resolve. “The Department of Defense has been around for over 70 years, but it sounds weak, too defensive, too woke. This is about victory,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The War Department was the US military’s official name from 1789 until 1947, when it was rebranded as the Department of Defense following the Second World War. Trump’s executive order cannot formally change the name without Congress, but it allows the older title to be used as a “secondary designation” across the department.
Hegseth, a former Fox News host and combat veteran, immediately endorsed the move, unveiling a new “Secretary of War” plaque outside his Pentagon office. He argued the shift was more than cosmetic: “This is about restoring a warrior ethos, maximum lethality, not political correctness.”
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Trump suggested that America’s military struggles since the mid-20th century were tied to the shift away from the War Department identity. “We won the First and Second World Wars. Then we changed the name, and ever since, we’ve been losing because we got too politically correct,” he said while signing his 200th executive order of his second term.
The move fits into Trump’s broader second-term agenda of projecting strength under his “Make America Great Again” banner. He has ordered US military deployments in the Caribbean against drug cartels linked to Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro, launched strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June, and sent the National Guard into American cities to tackle crime and illegal immigration.
Democrats criticized the change as a costly stunt aimed at rallying Trump’s conservative base ahead of the next election. The White House has yet to release a full cost estimate, though US outlets have speculated that updating agency seals, uniforms, and email systems could run into the billions.
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Hegseth has also pushed to roll back policies adopted under the Biden administration, including renaming military bases that once honored Confederate generals and allowing transgender service members.
The War Department, established in August 1789, originally oversaw the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps before the latter two split into separate entities a decade later.
Trump has argued for weeks that the Defense Department label makes the United States appear weak. “The world needs to know America still has warriors,” he said.
