Trump: The Best Defense is a Good Offense

In an NPR report from September 5th, President Trump signed an executive order on Friday to give the Department of Defense a new name: the Department of War. The change returns the department to a name that it carried for much of its history, until it became the Department of Defense in the wake of World War II. During a press conference in the Oval Office, Trump tried to explain that the name change was designed to reflect a new tone for the nation and the military.

For most of America’s early history, we didn’t have a “Department of Defense.” We had a Department of War. After World War II, in the anxious first years of the Cold War, Washington reorganized the military and rebranded the whole enterprise. Today, that name—Defense—is in the news again, with a push from the White House to bring back the Department of War. What did “War” mean  ...