US President Donald Trump is changing the name of the Department of Defence to the Department of War, the White House announced Thursday. The US leader insisted that the rebrand would project a more powerful image.
Trump will sign an executive order permitting the use of the Department of War as a “secondary title” for the sprawling department, according to a White House document. This change is due to the official name being set in law.
The name change “conveys a stronger message of readiness and resolve,” the document stated.
Trump has repeatedly stated his desire for this shift, claiming the department’s title was too “defensive.”
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.
Established in the early days of US independence, the Department of War historically oversaw American land forces.
A government reorganisation after World War II brought it, along with the US Navy and Air Force, under the unified National Military Establishment, which was retitled to the Department of Defence in 1949.
Trump’s order “instructs the Secretary of War to recommend actions, including legislative and executive actions, required to permanently rename” the department, the White House document said.
Officials are nonetheless authorised to use “secondary titles…in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch.”
