E-Paper
US Defence Department to be renamed 'Department of War', announces Donald Trump
According to a Fox News report, Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Friday to bring the change of name into effect.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday indicated that he intends to rename the Department of Defence to the Department of War, saying that “it sounds better”.
According to a Fox News report, Trump will sign an executive order on Friday to implement the name change.
“Pete Hegseth started by saying the Department of Defence. And somehow it didn't sound good to me, you know. Why are we defence? So, 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 Defence, we’re defenders,” Trump said to the media in the Oval Office.
Donald Trump then turned to his cabinet to ask them to vote to change the name and said that it just “sounded better.”
“I don't know, if you people standing behind me, if you take a vote, if you want to change it back to what it was when we used to win wars all the time, that's okay with me. Alright? You let me know if you want to do it. I think the Department of War, it just sounded better,” he added.
The Republican said that he doesn't want ‘defence’ and would like offence too.
The Department of War to the Department of Defence
The US Department of War was created in 1789, with a Secretary of War at the helm of affairs of all US land and naval affairs. A separate Navy Department was set up in 1798.
The Department of War also held the responsibility of the Air Force when it came into being. President Harry S Truman’s administration created separate Army and Air Force Departments after the Second World War, under the National Security Act of 1947, to form the National Military Establishment (NME). The three separate wings of the military were brought under a single umbrella of the Pentagon in 1949, and the NME was renamed to the Department of Defence.
