Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has set out to rename a range of places and institutions, including the Gulf of Mexico. But his latest attempts at renaming the Department of Defence to Department of War are being seen by many to be at odds with American history and philosophy, and complicating relations with both friends and foes.
All this, in turn, may complicate the task of the U.S. Congress to accord the required constitutionally-mandated approval. Any change of name of American offices does require the consent of the American legislators.
On September 5, Trump signed what was his 200th executive order under the present term that was titled “Restoring the United States Department of War.”
Explaining its “purpose”, Trump said in this order,“ On August 7, 1789, 236 years ago, President George Washington signed into law a bill establishing the United States Department of War to oversee the operation and maintenance of military and naval affairs. It was under this name that the Department of War, along with the later formed Department of the Navy, won the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II, inspiring awe and confidence in our Nation’s military, and ensuring freedom and prosperity for all Americans. The Founders chose this name to signal our strength and resolve to the world. The name ‘Department of War,’ more than the current ‘Department of Defense,’ ensures peace through strength, as it demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend. This name sharpens the Department’s focus on our own national interest and our adversaries’ focus on our willingness and availability to wage war to secure what is ours. I have therefore determined that this Department should once again be known as the Department of War and the Secretary should be known as the Secretary of War.”
But then, as experts remind, Trump is quoting a part of history, not its entirety. He does not mention why leaders like George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and James Forrestal, who had guided America through World War II, the largest conflict the world had ever seen, wanted the change.
They did not speak of war lightly. Their decision reflected hard-won lessons that American power in the post-war period must be organized for more than episodic conflict, and that military strength had to be integrated into a broader strategy of deterrence and alliance.
Before America’s involvement in World War II, the US military was not an integrated whole. The Department of War primarily oversaw the US Army.
There was a separate Department of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Navy was as independent as the Secretary of War. There was no Air Force; it was a subordinate wing of the Army.
The Navy had its separate Air Wing. Rivalry, rather than coordination, between the Department of War and the Department of the Navy was frequently in the headlines.
In fact, none other than then President Harry S. Truman had remarked, “There were tremendous bureaucratic squabbles between the Army and the Navy and the emerging Air Force over the allocation of financial resources.”
There was minimal communication between the two Departments of War and Navy and the Department of State during the country’s global war. Besides, there was a lack of a professional intelligence service.
In fact, it is said that Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor stemmed in part from poor intelligence collection on the one hand and inadequate communication and policy coordination among the Army, Navy, and State Department on the other.
It was against this background that Melvyn Leffler, a historian at the University of Virginia, and the author of the book “A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)” wrote that “Truman and his top national security advisers believed that it was essential to integrate and rationalize both national security planning and the preparation of the war plans.”
Similarly, in an essay for the Truman Library Institute, Prof. William Inboden has pointed out that Truman, realizing the insufficiencies of the non-cohesive military to confront the then emerging Soviet threat in what was to be the Cold War, and the concomitant need for American leadership in a world still recovering from the ravages of world war, brought out the National Security Act of 1947.
Among its several provisions, the Act created the National Security Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Air Force, and also unified the military services under what was combined the Army, Navy, and the newly independent Air Force into one department called “the National Military Establishment” under one Cabinet secretary, who also oversaw the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its first secretary was James Forrestal.
Two years later, Congress amended the National Security Act, and the National Military Establishment was renamed the Department of Defense. It is said that one of the reasons for this was that the abbreviation NME, when pronounced, sounded like “enemy”; hence the change!
If Prof. Leffler and other military historians like Prof. Richard H. Kohn are to be believed, apart from strengthening war-fighting abilities, the name change in 1949 also reflected the department’s expanded involvement and coordination with foreign policy, intelligence, and, above all, comprehensive national security in a nuclear age.
And the emphasis here was on avoiding war and “to communicate to America’s adversaries and the rest of the world that America was not about making war but defending itself and saying that if that requires war, there are four major armed services.”
In other words, the message was very clear that America was for deterring future wars, rather than waging wars. Every successive American Administration retained faith in this message, at least as a matter of public policy. Multiple wars that America has fought since then have all been rationalized in the name of defense or deterrence.
In a way, all the countries believe in the same message. All countries, whether America’s allies or partners or even enemies, have Ministries of Defense or similar names, not a Ministry of War.
For instance, the U.K. has the Ministry of Defence, France has the Ministry of the Armed Forces, Canada has the Department of National Defence, Australia has Department of Defence, India has the Ministry of Defence, China has Ministry of National Defense, Russia has Ministry of Defense, North Korea has Ministry of National Defense and Iran has Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.
In fact, every country, whether democratic or authoritarian, projects or presents its armed forces as instruments of protection rather than engines of conquest. It is all the more so when the charter of the United Nations has formally abolished war as a legitimate instrument of statecraft.
Dr. Walter C. Ladwig III of the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, makes a lot of sense when he says that casting the Pentagon as oriented toward ‘defense’ has been essential for both credibility and reassurance to both Americans at home and allies abroad. As it is, domestically, Americans have been wary of ‘wars’ and internationally, America has always presented itself as a stabilising force and supporter of the UN Charter.
Viewed thus, renaming DoD as “Department of War” will undo all the above.
“Undoing that choice now has immediate consequences. Some allies will interpret the change as America turning away from collective defence toward unilateral combat, while others will question Washington’s seriousness and judgment in addressing the real security challenges they face together. Rivals will read it as confirmation of aggressive intent. It even hands America’s adversaries an easy propaganda win, allowing them to portray Washington as aggressive rather than protective”, Ladwig III argues.
Reportedly, any name change will cost the treasury billions of dollars as it requires updating signs and letterheads used not only by officials at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., but also military installations around the world.
Incidentally, an effort by former President Joe Biden to rename nine bases that honored the Confederacy and Confederate leaders was set to cost the Army $39 million, a decision that Trump has now reversed.
Given all this, will the US Congress agree to put Trump’s idea into shape? It is possible, given the slim majority that the Republicans have in the American legislature. But then it is equally possible that Trump’s successor could rethink the restoration of a name that clearly belongs to the past.
We may see the quick return of the DoD.
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
