US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth may become the war secretary tomorrow. Photo / Getty Images
President Donald Trump is expected to rebrand the United States Defence Department to the Department of War through an executive order tomorrow.
It’s a move that the Trump Administration has said more accurately reflects the mission of the men and women serving in uniform today.
“Restoring the name ‘Department of War’ will sharpen the focus of this Department on our national interest and signal to adversaries America’s readiness to wage war to secure its interests,” according to a document describing the forthcoming executive order.
The Administration had been teasing the change for weeks, with Trump telling reporters during an Oval Office meeting last month that the renaming would be coming very soon.
Today, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in a commencement speech to new military officers at Fort Benning in Georgia said that his job title as “may be a slightly different title tomorrow; we’ll see”.
It was not clear if the president could unilaterally rename the department, which was created by Congress in 1789, as each iteration of its name has come about through legislation.
Also unclear is whether the move is intended as a full-scale renaming, or if the Administration intends to leave much of the Defence Department’s historic signage intact and unchanged even if Hegseth decides to call the agency the Department of War.
Based on the document describing the change, the Administration may be seeking to circumvent congressional action by saying the action would use the Department of War “as a secondary title for the Department of Defence”.
However, it would authorise Hegseth and the department to “use secondary titles such as ‘Secretary of War’, ‘Department of War’, and ‘Deputy Secretary of War’ in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch”, the document says.
Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Congress established the agency to be led by a secretary of war. The bill was signed into law by President George Washington.
Following World War II, the War Department was temporarily renamed the National Military Establishment.
A 1949 amendment renamed the agency once again to its current name, the Department of Defence.
The last major military command renaming also occurred under Trump, when then-Defence Secretary Jim Mattis announced in 2018 that US Pacific Command would be renamed US Indo-Pacific Command, to better reflect the importance of India’s role in US defence strategy in the East.
However, Official name changes come with a hefty price tag.
The blue seal of the Department of Defence is on hundreds of installations and government buildings across the globe. Official signage, stationery and publications across the services may also need to be overhauled.
Under the Biden Administration, an effort to rename military facilities honouring US Civil War-era Confederates cost more than US$60 million ($102m), according to the renaming commission.
When Trump returned to office, Hegseth undid much of that work, restoring the old names by identifying service members with last names similar to those of the Confederate honourees.
Sceptics of the move quickly pounced on the planned announcement.
“American military supremacy has eroded as China has sprinted to field combat forces that they hope can defeat the US military in the Pacific. Changing the name of the Department of Defence won’t help with that,” said Brad Bowman, senior director of the Centre on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.
“Perhaps the significant amount of money spent making new signs, office placards and letterhead would be better used ensuring our war fighters have the training and weapons they need to accomplish the missions they are given and to return home to their families.”
Hegseth, a former National Guard officer and Fox News personality, has been discussing the issue internally since March, said a person familiar with the matter, apparently inspired after a White House meeting at which Trump quipped, “you look more like a secretary of war”.
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