By Phil Stewart and Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to rename the Department of Defense the “Department of War,” reverting to a title it held until after World War Two when officials sought to emphasize the Pentagon’s role in preventing conflict.
Trump’s move represented his latest effort to rebrand the U.S. military, which has included his decision to preside over an extraordinary military parade in downtown Washington, D.C., and to restore the original names of military bases that were changed after racial justice protests in 2020.
Trump has also challenged conventional norms over domestic deployment of the U.S. armed forces, creating military zones along the southern U.S. border with Mexico to aid an immigration crackdown as well as deploying troops in cities like Los Angeles and Washington.
The order would authorize Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and subordinate officials to use secondary titles such as “Secretary of War” and “Deputy Secretary of War” in official correspondence and public communications, according to a White House fact sheet.
“It’s a very important change, because it’s an attitude,” Trump said as he signed the executive order at a ceremony in the Oval Office. “It’s really about winning.”
The move would instruct Hegseth to recommend legislative and executive actions required to make the renaming permanent.
Department name changes are rare and have required congressional approval. Still, Trump questioned whether he really needed a nod from Congress, even though his fellow Republicans hold slim majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives.
Two Republican senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida, and one Republican House member, Greg Steube of Florida, introduced legislation on Friday to make the change.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, introduced as the Secretary of War by Trump, cheered the change, which he has long advocated.
“We’re going to go on the offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” Hegseth said.
The U.S. Department of Defense was called the War Department until 1949, when Congress consolidated the Army, Navy and Air Force in the wake of World War Two. Historians say the name was chosen in part to signal that in the nuclear age, the U.S. was focused on preventing conflict.
Changing the name again will be costly and require updating signs and letterheads used not only by officials at the Pentagon, but also military installations around the world.
An effort by former President Joe Biden to rename nine bases that honored the Confederacy and Confederate leaders was set to cost the Army $39 million. Hegseth reversed that effort this year.
Critics have said the planned name change is not only costly, but an unnecessary distraction for the Pentagon.
Hegseth has said that changing the name is “not just about words — it’s about the warrior ethos.”
This year, one of Trump’s closest congressional allies, Republican U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, introduced a bill that would make it easier for a president to reorganize and rename agencies.
“We’re just going to do it. I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that … Defense is too defensive. We want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive too if we have to be,” Trump said last month.
Trump also mentioned the possibility of a name change in June, when he suggested that the name was originally changed to be “politically correct.”
But for some in the Trump administration, the effort goes back much further.
During Trump’s first term, current FBI Director Kash Patel, who was briefly at the Pentagon, had a sign-off on his emails that read: “Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense & the War Department.”
“I view it as a tribute to the history and heritage of the Department of Defense,” Patel told Reuters in 2021.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Idrees Ali and Michelle Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio)
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