"Donald Trump is a showman who likes flashy spectacles and heated controversies. He has chosen Cabinet nominees for their shock value, attacked famous American universities, mobilized the Justice Department against his political enemies, and sent troops into American cities, fully aware of how much these theatrics would enrage his opponents. But even in a term marked by political performance art, Trump's plan to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War might be a new high-or low."
"He said that Department of War "just sounded better" and that it would be a callback to the name under which U.S forces fought in the two world wars. But the change is also a reflection of how much Trump and Secretary of Defense (his title for now) Pete Hegseth think of themselves as tough guys, real fighters who will no longer trifle with silly names about "defending" things."
"After all, who are any of us to argue with General George Patton, who said in 1943: "No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his country." And that, apparently, is what the U.S. military is going to do once it gives its watery collection of uniformed bureaucrats a name worthy of killers who want to grind the guts of America's enemies between their clenched jaws."
Donald Trump stages flashy spectacles and cultivates heated controversies, selecting Cabinet nominees for shock value, attacking universities, mobilizing the Justice Department against political opponents, and deploying troops to American cities. The president plans to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, framing the change as harkening back to World War-era nomenclature and because it "just sounded better." The renaming reflects an embrace of aggressive, offensive military language and an idolization of "warfighters" and "warfighting" focused on "lethality." That rhetoric elevates offensive action over defense and celebrates a combative, macho conception of military purpose.
Read at The Atlantic
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