After all, "War and Peace" had a working title "War, what is it good for" before his mistress insisted he change it.
In reality the majority of the US military budget does not go to defence in the colloquial sense, it's far more about projecting US power globally (which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you think that the US is projecting it's power for good).
"War" is a better description and sounds less innocent than "defence" would imply, although I think you could argue that even this is a slightly misleading description.
We had a War Department. Rebranding to Defense was a PR move to hide what was really happening.
This is a good thing as it’s far more truthful.
he can start calling it by something else.... but its still the DOD.
If you wait and just update the logo as things naturally ages out, then it's going to take decades.
This is a good name even if you are against wars like I am.
Calling it "Defense" just gives the wrong impression that most of the money goes towards "defending" ourselves instead of attacking others. We should avoid euphemisms when naming government agencies.
Not really. It's the old name of the Department of the Army. Except for the first nine years of the DoW's existence, the Navy had its own, independent department, as did the USAF once it was established as a separate branch.
The Department of Defense didn't exist until after WW2, and was called the National Military Establishment for the first couple of years.
You see a similar pattern in the UK, which had the War Office for the Army, the Admiralty for the Royal Navy and the Air Ministry for the RAF: after WW2, the Ministry of Defence was created, initially liaising and co-ordinating between the service ministries, and then fully absorbing and replacing them.
tl;dr the Department of War is the old name of the Department of the Army, not of the Department of Defense.
Completely untrue, because a statement such as this requires counter examples, comparators.
Compare the US to any colonial power. Such countries were hell bent on ruling the world. The Brits had the largest empire the world has ever seen, boots on ground in dozens of colonies. And everyone in Europe was invading each other, their colonies endlessly and constantly.
Compared to the scale and scope of action those colonial powers undertook, the US is the most peaceful and benevolent country ever.
Modern comparisons show much the same. For example, Canada was more than a decade in Afghanistan. Canada is not war like, but does think stamping out oppressive regimes is a good idea. Canada also has blue hats in multiple countries.
Those sort of actions may turn out poorly, but the intentions are not to harm but help. And yes, I agree that is debatable except we're talking about the statement I quoted.
And when you look at truly aggressive nations, such as Russia, again no comparison. When recently has the US invaded a country, with the goal of taking it over and absorbing it? That's right, never in living memory.
If US truly did what it had the power to do, it could have easily taken over the world.
Has it? Did it invade everyone? No.
Yes, the US does deploy its military might. Yes, maybe it should less often.
No, it isn't aggressive, it's just very powerful.
I would very much argue it restrains its use of power mightily.
Next youll tell us black people should really be slaves or go back to africa.
Thanks gyy
The next move is to follow the USFL and Miss USA/Miss Teen USA playbook and create his own Nobel Prize.
Can they change the ATF to the Department of Uncategorized Federal Overreach?
Also, NOAA should be called the Weather Force.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
― George Orwell, 1984https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Wa...
- Ugliness is beautiful.
- Happiest people are the saddest.
- The darkest light is bright.
- Comfort is uncomfortable.
- Impossible is easy.
- The biggest people are the smallest.
- The bravest are the most afraid.
- Obvious things are the most uncertain.
- Peace is war.
You can keep going for all words with an antonym. Any insight or truth in these statements comes from your brain trying to give them meaning because they're grammatically correct and so short they can't be immediately discarded as obviously false.
The founding fathers thought the different branches would want to keep their power. They didn't expect that feckless senators and representatives would want to hand off parts of their jobs so they could tell voters the bad happenings aren't their fault.
Oh and Israel bombed Qatar with implicit US approval.
He likely does not want to actually invade anyone or do anything that brings actual war to the US but he does want the personal benefits that come with being at war.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/09/americas/venezuela-yvan-g...
So far that's going as well as the Wars on Drugs and Poverty did.
I'm not sure at all about anything anyway. But right now, I have friends working for "Defense AI related" projects and knowing their interests in AI, I'm sure all the companies are doing is to stamp AI-ready label in the same missiles.
Remember that anyone can say that a linear model is AI.
> It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.”
> These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.
* https://archive.today/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/arch...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Nichols_(academic)
The current president seems to think that this change is important, but Nichols goes over some previous presidents:
> That name was good enough for Truman, who served in combat in World War I and dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. And it was good enough for President Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander, who oversaw the largest military operations ever undertaken in all of human history.
> It was also good enough for John F. Kennedy, who served his country as a naval officer and nearly got killed during World War II. It was good enough for Lyndon B. Johnson, who won the Silver Star for his military service, and then, as commander in chief, embroiled the United States in a decade-long war in Southeast Asia. It was good enough for Naval Reserve officer Richard Nixon, who took over Johnson’s war and unleashed the fury of American bombers overseas. It was good enough for Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, both former Navy officers. It was good enough for Ronald Reagan, a former Army officer who as president pushed through a huge program of military expansion and modernization. It was good enough for his successor, George H. W. Bush, a decorated naval aviator who was shot down during combat in the Pacific.
* Ibid
> Hegseth concurred with Trump's contention.
> "We changed the name after World War II from the Department of War to the Department of Defense and … we haven't won a major war since," Hegseth said.
Will this name change suddenly make the USA any more successful in winning wars? That is doubtful at best but I do prefer the lack of euphemism in this new old name. War is dirty business and the more this is made clear the better it is.