September 5, 2025
Don’t call it the Department of Defense anymore…the president just signed an executive order renaming it the the War Department. But why?
The president said it’s more of a vibe shift.
And things have already changed. When you go to Google and type Dept of Defense you are redirected to a new website war.gov and you can see at the very top it already says US Department of War. Now — there is some history to the name department of war. Shortly after the United States government was formed, the congress under President George Washington established what was called the War Department. That was a cabinet level position that oversaw the operation of the Army, Navy and Marine Corp. As the president said – after World Wars I and II – in 1947 President Harry Truman signed the national security act and then an amendment to that law. Those pieces of legislation merged the Navy, the Air Force and the War Department into one single organization led by a civilian Secretary of Defense. Then the name was changed to Department of Defense. And that’s what it’s been that way ever since.
Today President Trump talked a lot about going back to military mentality of the late 1800s and early 1900s when the US military was under the direction of the War Department. Today he suggested all the wars we have been involved in since World War two and all the leadership and brave men and women who fought in those wars and conflicts around the world since the 1950s have been half-assing it?
I’m not quite sure how a name change would correlate to winning wars – but I guess the president thinks the vibe shift makes a difference. So the question is – like all of President Trump’s executive orders…is it legal? Can he just do that on his own or does congress have to pass another law to officially change the name? Here’s what he said about that.
But how much is this going to cost? Well it depends on how far the president goes with it – but some experts say it could cost a billion dollars. The President Trump says – no it won’t cost that much.
Read the executive order here.
Watch Trump’s announcement here.
Read the history of the Department here.
