The moniker "Department of War" more fittingly represents the function of the department compared to "Defense."
The political landscape in the United States has seen a significant shift with President Donald Trump's announcement to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War. This move, while controversial, has raised questions about the future direction of U.S. foreign policy.
The newly formed department, now known as the Department of War, will be immediately responsible for U.S. relations with Native Americans, as it was in its original incarnation established by Congress in 1789. The department played a decisive role in the colonization of the continental United States and beyond, and its operations were not always devoid of brutality.
The renaming of the department comes amidst Trump's rebrand, which could potentially enable more transparent debate over the funding and deployment of U.S. military power across the globe. This rebrand may strip away the facade of military policy as the protection of peace, a notion that journalist Hanson Baldwin thought was a euphemism.
The idea of acquiring Canada was a U.S. government ambition until 1871, and Trump's views on global politics seem to echo this sentiment. He has mused about buying Greenland and making Canada the 51st state, suggesting a land-grab approach to foreign policy, whether by commerce or conquest.
The Department of War's responsibilities extend far beyond U.S. borders. During World War II, the department was tasked with invading the Philippines in 1899, and the United States' entry into the war was justified using the rhetoric of self-defense. However, the event known as Pearl Harbor was accompanied by attacks on many of America's colonial possessions in the Pacific, raising questions about the extent of U.S. involvement in these conflicts.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt focused his 'Day of Infamy' speech on Pearl Harbor, only mentioning the other attacks in a list at the end. His initial draft for the speech also mentioned attacks on the Philippines, in addition to Hawaii. Americans were concerned about defending overseas territories they were hardly aware of, according to historians. Opinion polls at the time suggested that only Hawaii, with its large white population, would seem close enough to represent a part of the homeland.
The Department of Defense received its name in 1949, a move intended to reflect a more defensive, less aggressive stance in U.S. foreign policy. The Department of War, on the other hand, cuts through decades of rhetoric about defending peace while continuously waging wars. The name 'Department of War' reveals that Trump thinks more like those who named invasion and plunder as explicit foreign-policy objectives.
This change in nomenclature may signal a shift in U.S. foreign policy, but it remains to be seen how this will play out in practice. The Department of War's new responsibilities and objectives will undoubtedly be the subject of much debate and scrutiny in the coming months.
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