President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War, a more bellicose alternative that echoes the agency's 18th-century name.
"I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends really a message of strength. We're very strong. We're much stronger than anyone would really understand," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after signing the order.
Trump had signaled during his second term an interest in changing the name to the original version from 1789, criticizing the Defense Department name as not fully reflective of its priority — winning wars. He told reporters Friday that he finalized the decision after "talking about it for months" and asserted the original name was only changed because the government at the time went "woke."
"We won the First World War. We won the Second World War. We won everything before that and in between. And then we decided to go woke and we changed the name to Department of Defense," Trump said. "So we're going Department of War."
Democratic President Harry Truman oversaw the first name change — from the Department of War to the National Military Establishment — by signing the National Security Act of 1947, which organized all military services into a single entity led by a secretary of defense.
Congress further amended the name in 1949, landing on Department of Defense amid concerns that the abbreviation of the National Military Establishment (NME) sounded too similar to “enemy.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has for months pushed for reverting to the original name, arguing it would help cement a "warrior ethos" in the military. He reiterated that sentiment during his remarks at Friday's Oval Office signing ceremony.
"We're going to raise up warriors, not just defenders," Hegseth said. "So this War Department, Mr. President, just like America, is back."
Trump's order does not formally rename the Department of Defense, a move that would require congressional approval. Instead, it makes the Department of War the secondary title and authorizes Hegseth to use titles like secretary of war and Department of War in official correspondence and public communications.
To further cement the rebrand, Trump's order requires all executive departments and agencies to “recognize and accommodate these secondary titles in internal and external communications.”
Hegseth wasted no time incorporating the secondary title into the department's communications. As Trump signed the executive order at the White House, the Department of Defense updated its website URL and social media handles to reflect the new name.
He also removed several references to the Department of Defense at the Pentagon, including on signage directly in front of his office. Placards surrounding Hegseth’s work space now read “The Office of the Secretary of War.”
