Trump's Executive Order Returns Department of Defense to Its Original Name, But It's Missing Something

Matt Vespa | September 06, 2025 6:50 AM

It’s back. It will no longer be referred to as the Department of Defense within the Trump administration. The Department of War has made its return. Since the nation’s founding, we have had such a department until the National Security Act of 1947 dissolved it, renaming it the Department of Defense. President Trump signed an executive order yesterday, resurrecting the Department of War as an unofficial secondary title. You need Congress to sign off on an official rename (via Fox News):

President Donald Trump on Friday signed his 200th executive order, authorizing the Department of Defense to change its name to the Department of War.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said the new name "sends a message of victory, a message of strength" to the world.
"It has to do with winning," the president added. "We should have won every war. We could have won every war. But we really chose to be very politically correct or woke.
[…]
Trump said the name is "a much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now."
"We have the strongest military in the world. We have the greatest equipment in the world. We have the greatest men. New factories of equipment, by far. There's nobody to even compete," he said.
[…]
It’s unclear if Congress, which has the authority to establish federal executive departments, will need to step in to issue final approval on the move. However, Trump expressed confidence the name will stick, saying, "We're going with it, and we're going with it very strongly … but we'll put it before Congress."