President Trump has signed an executive order renaming the Defense Department to the War Department. For most of American history, it was the War Department. In 1949, it was changed to the Defense Department, presumably to be less hostile sounding. Of course, since the change, the US has generally lost wars. Defense is a passive term. You stand behind your castle wall and hold off the attackers. That's defense. By renaming the department, we linguistically dumped half of the mission: offense. Is it mere coincidence that we've lost wars ever since? Probably.
Pete Hegseth becomes the first Secretary of War since Kenneth Royall in 1947. Three presidents have served as the War Secretary - James Monroe, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Howard Taft. Let's see how things go with a War Department for a few decades and hope things improve.
