Trump Proposes Renaming Department of Defense to Its Original Name

President Donald Trump proposed on Aug. 25 that his administration rename the Department of Defense to its previous name, the Department of War.

“Pete, you started off by saying ’the Department of Defense.’ And somehow it didn’t sound good to me,” Trump said in the Oval Office, speaking to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, after signing executive orders on fighting crime, including in Washington.

“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.”

Hegseth, standing behind Trump, said the name change is on the way.

“That’s coming soon, sir,” he told Trump.

Trump said that “Department of War” sounds better than “Department of Defense.”

“Defense? I don’t want to be Defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too, if that’s OK,” he said, adding that “as Department of War, we won everything, we won everything. And I think we’re going to have to go back to that.”

Trump touted bringing an end to conflicts between India and Pakistan and the Congo and Rwanda.

This was not the first time Trump had suggested changing the Defense Department back to its previous name.

“You know it used to be called secretary of war,” Trump told reporters on June 25 at the NATO summit in the Netherlands. “Maybe for a couple of weeks we’ll call it that because we feel like warriors.” He introduced Hegseth as “secretary of war.”

“Then we became politically correct and they called it secretary of defense,” Trump said. “Maybe we’ll have to think about changing it. But we feel that way.” Prior to becoming defense secretary, Hegseth called for changing the Defense Department back to its old name.

“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.”

The Defense Department was called the Department of War when it was established in 1789. In 1947, President Harry Truman changed the name after merging it with the Navy Department. He signed the National Security Act, which established the position of secretary of defense. It also established the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. Air Force.