Pentagon rebranded as Department of War is Trump’s strategy to ensure America’s preeminence as military power

President Donald Trump hinted Monday(August 25) that his administration may soon rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War. In recent weeks, Trump has suggested he may restore the department’s original name, referring to Hegseth as his “Secretary of War” during a NATO summit in June and blaming political correctness for the change.

“If you look at the old building next to the White House, you can see where it used to be the Secretary of War,” he said. “Then we became politically correct and they called it Secretary of Defense.”

Additionally, Hegseth posted a poll on his personal X account in March, asking whether they preferred the Department of Defense or the Department of War, with most respondents favoring the latter.


Trump suggested that officials will “probably” rename the Pentagon back to its more assertive former title within roughly a week. He and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has pledged to revive the department’s “warrior ethos,” have frequently criticized the post-World War II name change.

Speaking at a press event with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, Trump said, “When we won World War I, World War II, it was called the Department of War. And to me, that's really what it is. Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”

The War Department operated from 1789 until 1947, when the Truman administration reorganized it by dividing the Army and Air Force and merging them with the previously independent Navy.

Former President Harry Truman renamed the newly formed cabinet-level agency the Department of Defense, aiming to give the Pentagon greater centralized authority over the separate military branches, particularly the Navy, which had maintained considerable autonomy through the end of World War II.