After months of promoting his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize, President Donald Trump struck a markedly different tone on Friday, signing an executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense with the secondary title “Department of War.”
Trump said the change was intended to project strength and signal that the United States is “a force to be reckoned with,” adding that the current name was “woke.” “I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends, really, a message of strength,” he remarked during the signing.
While Congress must formally approve any official name change, several of Trump’s allies in the legislature introduced a bill the same day to enshrine the new title in law. In the meantime, symbolic changes have already begun: the Pentagon’s website address has shifted from “defense.gov” to “war.gov,” signage has been replaced, and new stationery is planned.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, now referred to by Trump as the “secretary of war,” told attendees at the ceremony that the military would “go on offense, not just on defense,” employing “maximum lethality” without being “politically correct.”
The rebranding is the latest in a series of moves by Trump aimed at reshaping the US military and dismantling what he has called progressive influence within the armed forces. His administration has renamed bases, banned transgender service members, and removed online tributes to women and minorities in military history.
Trump has also embraced assertive and, according to critics, unlawful military actions, despite his frequent criticism of “endless wars” under previous administrations. He has publicly celebrated a stealth bomber strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and recently ordered the destruction of a vessel the US says was carrying drugs off Venezuela’s coast.
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