U.S. President Donald Trump speaks after signing an government order, as U.S. Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth look on, within the Oval Workplace on the White Home in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 25, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
President Donald Trump plans to signal an government order Friday to rebrand the Division of Protection because the Division of Warfare, his newest effort to venture a picture of toughness for America’s army.
The Republican president cannot formally change the title with out laws, which his administration would request from Congress. Within the meantime, Trump will authorize the Pentagon to make use of “secondary titles” so the division can go by its authentic title.
The plans had been disclosed by a White Home official, who requested anonymity forward of the general public announcement, and detailed in a White Home reality sheet.
The Division of Warfare was created in 1789, the identical 12 months that the U.S. Structure took impact. It was renamed by legislation in 1947, two years after the top of World Warfare II.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth posted “DEPARTMENT OF WAR” on social media after the chief order was initially reported by Fox Information.
Trump and Hegseth have lengthy talked about altering the title, and Hegseth even created a social media ballot on the subject in March.
Since then, he has hinted that his title as protection secretary might not be everlasting at a number of public occasions, together with a speech at Fort Benning, Georgia, on Thursday. He advised an auditorium filled with troopers that it “could also be a barely totally different title tomorrow.”
In August, Trump advised reporters that “all people likes that we had an unbelievable historical past of victory when it was Division of Warfare. Then we modified it to Division of Protection.”
When confronted with the chance that making the title change would require an act of Congress, Trump advised reporters that “we’re simply going to do it.”
“I am certain Congress will go alongside if we want that,” he added.
The transfer is simply the newest in an extended line of cultural modifications Hegseth has made to the Pentagon since taking workplace originally of the 12 months.
Early in his tenure, Hegseth pushed exhausting to eradicate what he noticed because the impacts of “woke tradition” on the army by not solely ridding the division of range packages however scrubbing libraries and web sites of fabric deemed to be divisive.
The end result was the elimination and overview of tons of of books within the army academies, which ended up together with titles on the Holocaust and a Maya Angelou memoir. It additionally resulted within the elimination off hundreds of internet sites honoring contributions by girls and minority teams.
“I believe the president and the secretary have been very clear on this — that anyone that claims within the Division of Protection that range is our power is, is frankly, incorrect,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell advised reporters in March.
Hegseth has additionally presided over the elimination of all transgender troops from the army following an government order from Trump by means of a course of that some have described as “dehumanizing” or “open cruelty.”