WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump on Sept. 5 signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War.
“I think it’s a much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now,” Trump said before signing the order at the Oval Office. “We have the strongest military in the world. We have the greatest equipment in the world.”
While the Pentagon will still be the Department of Defense—as a total renaming would require an act of Congress—the Defense Department can secondarily be referred to as the “Department of War,” and the defense secretary, currently Pete Hegseth, can go by the secondary title of “secretary of war.”…