United States President Donald Trump has directed that the Department of Defence be rebranded as the “Department of War,” a move he said would project America’s power more forcefully.
The White House announced the decision yesterday.
Although the department’s official name is established in law, Trump, through an executive order, is authorising the use of the new title as a secondary designation.
Defence officials are permitted to use “secondary titles such as ‘Secretary of War’…in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch,” according to the White House document.
It was not immediately clear when Trump would sign the order, though his Friday schedule listed executive signings and an Oval Office announcement.
The 79-year-old Republican has in recent weeks openly weighed a change, describing the existing name as too soft.
The Department of War “was the name when we won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything,” he told reporters on August 25.
The White House document added that the change “conveys a stronger message of readiness and resolve.”
The Pentagon itself was created after World War II when the War Department, alongside the Navy and newly created Air Force, was merged under the National Military Establishment, which in 1949 was renamed the Department of Defence.
“Restoring the name ‘Department of War’ will sharpen the focus of this Department on our national interest and signal to adversaries America’s readiness to wage war to secure its interests,” the White House said.