Politics
Hegseth Floats Name Change For The Department Of Defense
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked the public for their thoughts on renaming the department to its original name, the Department of War, in a poll posted to X.
“Better name? Have my thoughts… welcome yours,” the secretary posted along with the hashtag “PeoplesPentagon.” X users were then given the choice to vote on the name they would prefer between Department of War and Department of Defense.
With just over 151,000 votes in 14 hours, the latter choice is winning with 53.7 percent of the vote. The other 46.3 percent of respondents indicated that they would prefer the current name, while X users will still have another day to vote in the poll.
President George Washington’s original cabinet contained just four departments and department heads: Department of State, which was led by inaugural Secretary Thomas Jefferson, Department of the Treasury, which was conceived and headed up by Alexander Hamilton, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and the Department of War, which was first led by distinguished Continental Army General Henry Knox.
The War Department existed until 1947, when it was initially split into the Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Force, and the Department of the Navy. Congress had previously established a Department of the Navy in 1798, which was under the War Department’s purview.
President Harry Truman proposed a unified department of national defense in order to better coordinate U.S. Military affairs after the Second World War. In July of 1947, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which established the National Military Establishment (NME) and created several individual departments, including the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Air Force.
All of these entities were placed under the control of the National Military Establishment, while the U.S. Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first NME director a day after the department was established. In 1949, the NME was official renamed to the Department of Defense.
It is unclear whether the Trump Administration is seriously pursuing a name change at this time. Hegseth has yet to provide any follow-up details on the poll, while the DoD has yet to provide any formal press releases on the matter.
President Trump recently referred to the department as the Department of War in a Truth Social post, however, suggesting that a formal name change may indeed be pursued.
