The United States War Department was renamed the Department of Defense in 1947, as our country began a four-decade Cold War with the Soviet Union and ascended to the status of global superpower.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that restores the department’s original name, which George Washington established in 1789. It brings about a change that our first president would have enthusiastically supported.
In the 78 years that the United States has had a “Department of Defense,” we have never declared war once, but that has not stopped thousands upon thousands of American soldiers from sacrificing their lives in Korea, Vietnam, and, later, the Middle East.
During this time, the United States gained widespread recognition as the world’s policeman. Without actually declaring war, we played a violent game of Twister around the world, with our Defense Department dipping its toes into conflicts across continents.
Too often, our soldiers’ role was to maintain order rather than to kill the enemy, and just as a police force is restrained from using total force against criminals, our military was too often denied the opportunity to use its full force.
There is a fundamental distinction between war and policing. Wars can be won; policing cannot. Policing is an ongoing struggle, and that is exactly how America’s military interventions felt under the leadership of the Department of Defense.
“I want offense too,” Trump joked about the name change. But what he really means is that he wants wars that we can win, not endless nation-building boondoggles designed to maintain balance in a world rife with conflict, from Ukraine to Gaza.
Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, has made it clear that his priority is lethality rather than serving as a stick for diplomats. He wants an army, not a police force.
Carl von Clausewitz, the early nineteenth-century father of modern warfare, defined military victory as compelling the enemy to do your will by destroying their desire and ability to resist. That is something our military hasn’t done in quite some time.
But this may be changing.
It’s no coincidence that this cabinet-level name change came after the Trump administration blew up an alleged speedboat carrying drugs and smugglers from Venezuela.
Under the old rules, that boat could have been stopped and its crew granted Miranda rights. In other words, it would have been enforced.
But, according to Clausewitz, does this simple police work effectively destroy the Venezuelan gangs’ and government’s will and means to flood our country with lethal drugs? It doesn’t; it simply maintains the status quo from border to graveyard.
However, the next guys in line to board a drug-laden boat bound for Florida are no longer facing the possibility of jail time, as their gangs now run almost entirely of the facilities. No, they are looking at a quick escape to eternity beneath the sea.
Similarly, Trump’s direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities sent a new message to the Ayatollah, warning that if he goes too far, we will destroy him and his country.
The Department of Defense, may it rest in peace, was an admirable concept. It was launched with the goal of ending wars, not winning them. It was intended to support democracies around the world until all nations discovered the right and just path of liberty and capitalism.
It may have been worth a shot, but it simply did not work, which is why the Trump administration is returning to the original premise: armies exist to kill our enemies, not to protect and serve the world.
Not long after establishing the War Department, President Washington delivered a farewell address warning against foreign entanglements, despite the fact that our military, known as the Department of Defense, appeared to do little else.
President Trump is sending a message that the US will no longer defend itself with half-measures and never-ending peacekeeping missions. No, from this point forward, the Department of War exists to destroy our enemies, not to contain or constrain them.
