Trump has renamed the Pentagon the War Department

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defense the “Department of War.”

This marks a return to the name it had until the end of World War II, when officials sought to emphasize the Pentagon's role in conflict prevention.

Trump's move is his latest attempt to rename the U.S. military. It follows his decision to preside over an extraordinary military parade in downtown Washington, D.C., and to restore the original names of military bases that had been changed following the 2020 protests for racial justice.

“It's a much more appropriate name given the current state of the world,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office alongside Pentagon chief Pat Hegseth, who is now allowed to call himself “Secretary of War.”

The Pentagon immediately changed the designations at the U.S. Army headquarters, changing the title of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on his door to “Secretary of War” and the title of his deputy Steve Feinberg to “Deputy Secretary of War.”

The US Department of Defense was called the War Department until 1949, when Congress unified the Army, Navy, and Air Force after World War II. Historians claim that the name was chosen in part to signal that the US was focusing on conflict prevention in the atomic age.

(reuters, lup)