U.S. President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Friday renaming the Department of Defense the “Department of War,” a White House official said.
The order would authorize Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon officials to use secondary titles such as “Secretary of War” and “Deputy Secretary of War” in official correspondence and public communications, according to a White House fact sheet.
Hegseth would also be instructed to recommend legislative and executive actions to make the renaming permanent.
The Pentagon was known as the War Department until 1949, when Congress consolidated the Army, Navy, and newly established Air Force in the aftermath of World War II. The Defense Department name was meant to emphasize deterrence and conflict prevention in the nuclear age.
Changing the name again would be costly, requiring updates to signage, documents, and materials across military facilities worldwide. For comparison, former President Joe Biden’s initiative to rename nine Army bases that honored Confederate leaders was projected to cost $39 million before being reversed by Hegseth earlier this year.
Department name changes require congressional approval, though Republicans hold narrow majorities in both chambers and have largely backed Trump’s initiatives.
Democrats have criticized the move. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said funds would be better spent on military families or diplomacy. “Trump would rather use our military to score political points than to strengthen our national security and support our brave servicemembers and their families,” she said.
Since taking office in January, Trump has pursued a series of renaming efforts, including proposals to restore the original names of military bases changed after racial justice protests and even to rename geographic features such as the Gulf of Mexico.
