Trump to Sign Order Renaming the Defense Department as the Department of War

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/us/politics/trump-department-of-war-defense.html

by hypeatei • 11 months ago

25 24 11 months ago

bediger40002• 11 months ago

Given that the name "Department of Defense" is statutory, by what mechanism is Mr President doing this?

It's time for Congress to crack down on this outlandish behavior. Yes, Trump is president. No, Trump did not win by a landslide. No, current conservative grievances and policies are not blessed by god. No, Trump is not king. This kind of behavior needs to stop. The US is a republic, not a monarchy, let's keep it that way.

_mlbt3• 11 months ago

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution states…

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States

That being said, I think it is silly to rename it, but I think a case can be made that he has the Constitutional authority to do so.

bediger40002• 11 months ago

I'm not sure I'd read that particular clause in the way you say, but constitutional law is rarefied, and words in the Constitution often don't mean what they would if plain, honest folk used them in convesation

I suppose we're also in need of a Department of the Navy as well, based on your excerpt, but again, Constitutional words don't often have the semantics one might think.

But beyond all that, it's great that we've President Trump to make these hard decisions for us. No president in my lifetime (first voted in 1980 presidential election) would have made the right decision here, not even President Reagan. There would have been hearings, tense meetings with authority figure like the Speaker of the House and various billionaires, and the press would not have let go of it. It would have dominated news cycles for weeks. Can you imagine the punditry if G.W. Bush had done this? But Trump makes the right decision, billionaires are happy, pundits are happy, we just see non-biased, factual reporting. I hope that Trump's successor is equally correct in all these decisions. I don't want to return to the squabbling of the past.

anigbrowl2• 11 months ago

Where does that give him the authority to rename bodies established by Congress?

vlod• 11 months ago

https://archive.is/41W1D

wardomainexpert• 11 months ago

In domain-driven design (DDD), the ubiquitous language is a shared language that is used to describe the domain and the domain model. It’s a common language that is used by developers, stakeholders, and domain experts, to communicate and understand the business domain.

Domain-Driven Design explicitly emphasizes the importance of naming things properly with the notion of Ubiquitous Language. If you work in the domain of, say, invasion, killing, bombing, genocide, you probably shouldn’t name a Department of War as Defense Department. Department of War would be a more concise and specific option.

lioeters• 11 months ago

Department of Organized Violence.

cosmicgadget4• 11 months ago

When was our last declared war?

more_corn• 11 months ago

That’s uncharacteristically honest of him.

I’ve always been irritated that we called it that when it was active in so many non defensive theaters.

_mlbt3• 11 months ago

I actually think he’s one of the most honest politicians in modern history. I know that’s a really low bar. For good and bad, he does speak his mind instead of the usual focus group tested politically correct rhetoric that most politicians speak in. I think he’s comfortable with lying to save his own skin, but I don’t think he lies about his political beliefs very often.

cosmicgadget4• 11 months ago

Incidentally honest. He wants to project power because US enemies and frenemies are rallying behind China. The only thing Trump knows is branding so you get a name change to intimidate our adversaries.

Considering he is currently deploying armed forces in a non-war "defense" of our own cities, the rebrand is actually quite ironic.

adfm• 11 months ago

Feel free to down-vote, but what an absolute turd this guy is.

dc396• 11 months ago

What a particularly stupid way of distracting from the Epstein files.

_mlbt3• 11 months ago

I don’t think he’s personally implicated in the Epstein scandal anymore than what’s already public knowledge. You don’t think that something like that would’ve already been used against him?

I think it’s more likely that he’s being blackmailed by the intelligence community or covering up for his friends.

cosmicgadget4• 11 months ago

You don’t think that something like that would’ve already been used against him?

Honestly tired of this being used as some sort of exculpatory instant win. There are a handful of very good reasons this would not have happened. We won't know until he does the things his proxies promised.

And obviously covering for his allies is pretty terrible on its own.

SG-• 11 months ago

Just rename it Department of Trump and Gulf of Trump.

wrp• 11 months ago

Wikipedia: The War Department existed for 158 years, from August 7, 1789, to September 18, 1947, when it split into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force under the National Security Act of 1947, joining the Department of the Navy to form the National Military Establishment (NME). In 1949, the NME was renamed the Department of Defense (DOD).

It's personal taste, of course, but Department of Defense sounds mealy-mouthed to me. I actually like the idea of going back to the original name.

anigbrowl2• 11 months ago

Beyond personal taste, it's worth noting that these previous changes took place via an act of Congress, which Trump lacks legal authority to overturn.

fjfaase• 11 months ago

Is he about to start a war? Attack Iran again? Invade Venezuela? Invade Greenland? If he does so, he will probably not call it a war, but a military operation.

general1465• 11 months ago

Trump is a peaceful president. And war is peace.

minebreaker• 11 months ago

Isn't it interesting that the name is the opposite in 1984. It's called the Ministry of Peace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministries_in_Nineteen_Eighty-...

Whoppertime• 11 months ago

Well we already lived through Freedom being Slavery in 2020-2022

mindcrash• 11 months ago

Global West versus Global East, the definitive war to end all wars, World War III.

So given that little bit of context renaming the DoD makes a lot of sense.

cosmicgadget4• 11 months ago

Department of Justice to be renamed to Department of We Have Thousands of Hours of Epstein Footage and Zero Names.

Trump to Sign Order Renaming the Defense Department as the Department of War

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