President Donald Trump will reportedly sign an executive order on Friday that will officially change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
The agency’s name was changed to the Department of Defense following the end of World War II.
White House officials confirmed the name change to Fox News Digital on Thursday.
Both the president and his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, have advocated for the name change. The rebranding is part of the Trump administration’s “warrior ethos” campaign in the Pentagon.
Other actions Hegseth has taken in pursuit of his “warrior ethos” include banning books at military bases, ordering a name change for the USNS Harvey Milk — an iconic leader in LGBT history who was also a Navy lieutenant — and changing the name of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg, which was named after Confederate General Braxton Bragg.
In addition to changing the Department of Defense’s name, the executive order will also reportedly change titles associated with the position. Hegseth will no longer be the Secretary of Defense, but the Secretary of War.
According to White House officials who spoke to the outlet, Trump’s order will instruct Hegseth to pursue legislative and executive actions that will make the name change permanent.
Trump has mentioned the name change several times in the last month.
“Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War,” he told reporters on August 25. “Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”
Hegseth echoed Trump’s line of thinking — that America won more conflicts under the Department of War than it did under the Department of Defense — during an interview with Fox & Friends on Wednesday.
“We won WWI, and we won WWII, not with the Department of Defense, but with a War Department — with the Department of War,” he said. “As the president has said, we’re not just defense, we’re offense.”
He continued, saying he wants “folks that understand how to exact lethality on the enemy” at the Pentagon.
“We don’t want endless contingencies and just playing defense. We think words and names and titles matter. So we’re working with the White House and the president on it,” he said.
The U.S. used the Department of War name until 1949. It was then changed to the Department of Defense as part of a series of federal reforms that included the National Security Act, which was passed in 1947.
It’s unclear if Congress can or will have the chance to interject. Trump said during his August 25 meeting with reporters that “we’re just going to do it.”
“I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that. I don’t think we even need that,” he said.
Trump appears to want to project an aggressive American military presence to the world while also taking credit for being someone who has ended wars.
During a dinner with tech leaders on Thursday, Trump was asked if he would be speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin soon. He said he would and insisted that he had previously “ended seven wars.”
The White House provided a list of the wars that Trump says he’s ended. That list includes Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Thailand and Cambodia, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo.
An analysis by CBS News found that in nearly every instance, save for Thailand and Cambodia, experts either did not consider the conflicts resolved or did not consider the nations at war in the first place.
Trump has claimed, repeatedly, that he believes he should receive a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to resolve international conflicts.
Despite mentioning it on several occasions, Trump downplayed his desire for the prize in a call with CBS News.
“I have nothing to say about it,” he said. “All I can do is put out wars … I don’t seek attention. I just want to save lives.”
Trump’s actions as president don’t exactly line up with the peacemaker he’s projecting. Trump ordered the military to kill 11 people on a Venezuelan boat suspected of carrying drugs. No due process was offered to the alleged criminals. He has backed Israel in its continued attacks on Palestinians, bombed Iranian nuclear sites, unleashed the military on protesters and the streets of Washington, D.C., used masked federal agents to abduct immigrants, and he ordered the assassination of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani during his first term in office.
If Trump does sign the executive order changing the Department of Defense’s name, it will be the 200th executive order he has signed in his second term.
