"Today's planned executive order from the president purporting to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War is easy to mock. Sometimes it seems Donald Trump is determined to rename, rebrand, or debase every executive-branch institution he can reach, much like an animal marking its territory. His stated rationale for taking this step reflects his signature historical illiteracy."
"The underlying suggestion that the moniker Department of Defense was the work of postwar wimps and peaceniks is pretty hilarious when you recall (as Tom Nichols of The Atlantic reminds us) that the replacement of the War Department was executed by the president who dropped two nuclear weapons on Japanese cities and strongly endorsed by his successor, "the former supreme allied commander, who oversaw the largest military operations ever undertaken in all of human history.""
A planned executive order would rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War. The rationale invokes nostalgia for an older, 'stronger' name and claims past total victory in major conflicts. The 1947 name change followed a reorganization combining Army and Navy leadership and creating an independent Air Force, endorsed by wartime leaders who oversaw massive operations and use of nuclear weapons. Similar reorganizations occurred in other major powers without reducing their willingness to use force. The proposal signals a symbolic pivot toward hypermasculine militarism, emphasizing 'lethality' and branding over substantive organizational reform.
Read at Intelligencer
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