Rebranding an entire department under the US government cannot be cheap. That does not sound like something a frugal government does without a very good reason.
whatsupdog · 57m ago
This action might save trillions of dollars when the future generations will see all this money going to war, instead of "defense". And you are worried about a few million it might take to rebrand?
bbarnett · 47m ago
I doubt it. People want to live with their heads in the sand.
After all, "War and Peace" had a working title "War, what is it good for" before his mistress insisted he change it.
andrewstuart2 · 46m ago
Maybe it's more obvious when named this way, but I don't think I've ever been under the impression that the DoD is focused on peaceful means of keeping the peace.
kypro · 38m ago
Transparency might cost a government in a direct sense, but the liberal argument would be that a transparent government is a more democratic and accountable government therefore that cost should ultimately result in better governance which has lots of indirect benefits.
In reality the majority of the US military budget does not go to defence in the colloquial sense, it's far more about projecting US power globally (which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you think that the US is projecting it's power for good).
"War" is a better description and sounds less innocent than "defence" would imply, although I think you could argue that even this is a slightly misleading description.
fabian2k · 1h ago
Why would you assume the current government is frugal in any way?
simonw · 1h ago
I understand it's also something which takes an act of Congress, not that this administration seems to care about that at all. See also tariffs. And delaying the TikTok ban.
altacc · 1h ago
There's the best and most justifiable reason for doing anything: Dear Leader said so. /s
This is a good name even if you are against wars like I am.
Calling it "Defense" just gives the wrong impression that most of the money goes towards "defending" ourselves instead of attacking others. We should avoid euphemisms when naming government agencies.
dghf · 56m ago
> For those who don't know it, this is the name the department has had for most of its history
Not really. It's the old name of the Department of the Army. Except for the first nine years of the DoW's existence, the Navy had its own, independent department, as did the USAF once it was established as a separate branch.
The Department of Defense didn't exist until after WW2, and was called the National Military Establishment for the first couple of years.
You see a similar pattern in the UK, which had the War Office for the Army, the Admiralty for the Royal Navy and the Air Ministry for the RAF: after WW2, the Ministry of Defence was created, initially liaising and co-ordinating between the service ministries, and then fully absorbing and replacing them.
tl;dr the Department of War is the old name of the Department of the Army, not of the Department of Defense.
altacc · 1h ago
The history justification is moot given that the reason for the name wasn't clarifying an existing role (the US is already very aggressive militarily and happy to attack whenever and wherever it pleases) instead the justification that went with the naming is that the US should be even more aggressive. That, as well as not being necessary or wanted by the world, goes counter to Trump's pre-election promise not to involve the US in more foreign wars.
bbarnett · 28m ago
the US is already very aggressive militarily and happy to attack whenever and wherever it pleases
Completely untrue, because a statement such as this requires counter examples, comparators.
Compare the US to any colonial power. Such countries were hell bent on ruling the world. The Brits had the largest empire the world has ever seen, boots on ground in dozens of colonies. And everyone in Europe was invading each other, their colonies endlessly and constantly.
Compared to the scale and scope of action those colonial powers undertook, the US is the most peaceful and benevolent country ever.
Modern comparisons show much the same. For example, Canada was more than a decade in Afghanistan. Canada is not war like, but does think stamping out oppressive regimes is a good idea. Canada also has blue hats in multiple countries.
Those sort of actions may turn out poorly, but the intentions are not to harm but help. And yes, I agree that is debatable except we're talking about the statement I quoted.
And when you look at truly aggressive nations, such as Russia, again no comparison. When recently has the US invaded a country, with the goal of taking it over and absorbing it? That's right, never in living memory.
If US truly did what it had the power to do, it could have easily taken over the world.
Has it? Did it invade everyone? No.
Yes, the US does deploy its military might. Yes, maybe it should less often.
No, it isn't aggressive, it's just very powerful.
I would very much argue it restrains its use of power mightily.
brainzap · 59m ago
1$ of every iphone you buy goes to War
cyanydeez · 1h ago
Yawn. "We really should be regrsssive cause of history"
Next youll tell us black people should really be slaves or go back to africa.
Thanks gyy
leventhan · 1h ago
For once, reducing the budget for the war department doesn't sound bad
edwinjm · 1h ago
The Nobel Peace Prize, which he really wanted, isn't a priority anymore, is it?
goku12 · 1h ago
‘War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.’
Zealotux · 1h ago
They gave it to Obama, anything is possible.
SanjayMehta · 41m ago
If you look at some of the people who received the Nobel Peace Prize, you can’t fault him for thinking he should get one too.
random_ind_dude · 22m ago
Will defense contractors be known as war contractors from now on?
voxadam · 1h ago
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
― George Orwell, 1984
detritus · 1h ago
I doubt he wrote that then, given he'd been dead for 34 years at that point.
rmonvfer · 39m ago
I’m pretty sure he’s quoting the book
jhanschoo · 24m ago
On the other hand, I think anyone who knows when Orwell died should know Noneteen-Eighty-Four, so the comment should be seen as a joke, though it helps to give a textual signal like /jk
sertsa · 45m ago
It’s from the book “1984”, published in 1949.
detritus · 43m ago
Sadly you ignored the main takeaway from the quotation, "ignorance is strength".
SanjayMehta · 40m ago
Well played. I’m stealing this.
dlcarrier · 4h ago
I like this lack of euphemisms.
Can they change the ATF to the Department of Uncategorized Federal Overreach?
Also, NOAA should be called the Weather Force.
gilleain · 1h ago
"Weather Force" sounds like a low-budget kids show. The characters? So there's 'Lightning' of course, who is generally angry. 'Sunshine', naturally - the happy one of the group. Also, uh, 'Drizzle'? hmmm. Could use some work.
jackvalentine · 55m ago
This is just Captain Planet but lamer.
keyle · 42m ago
It is true they're all about cutting waste, they just saved 4 bytes!
throw0101a · 16m ago
From Tom Nichols (a now-retired prof at the US Naval War College):
> It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.”
> These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.
The current president seems to think that this change is important, but Nichols goes over some previous presidents:
> That name was good enough for Truman, who served in combat in World War I and dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. And it was good enough for President Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander, who oversaw the largest military operations ever undertaken in all of human history.
> It was also good enough for John F. Kennedy, who served his country as a naval officer and nearly got killed during World War II. It was good enough for Lyndon B. Johnson, who won the Silver Star for his military service, and then, as commander in chief, embroiled the United States in a decade-long war in Southeast Asia. It was good enough for Naval Reserve officer Richard Nixon, who took over Johnson’s war and unleashed the fury of American bombers overseas. It was good enough for Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, both former Navy officers. It was good enough for Ronald Reagan, a former Army officer who as president pushed through a huge program of military expansion and modernization. It was good enough for his successor, George H. W. Bush, a decorated naval aviator who was shot down during combat in the Pacific.
* Ibid
motbus3 · 1h ago
Approving money for war is harder than approving money for defense. I don't think it was his intention. He wants to sound masculine and brave, like Putin seems to do for him.
I'm not sure at all about anything anyway.
But right now, I have friends working for "Defense AI related" projects and knowing their interests in AI, I'm sure all the companies are doing is to stamp AI-ready label in the same missiles.
Remember that anyone can say that a linear model is AI.
vim-guru · 52m ago
What an ugly logo, and the kerning is all wrong. Man!
FjordWarden · 47m ago
Wow there is so much spacing after the "of" that I read it as "U.S. Department of space war"
dobladov · 1h ago
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Yizahi · 1h ago
Amnesia.gov
SanjayMehta · 43m ago
Truth in advertising.
OhMeadhbh · 6h ago
Did congress declare war on someone while I was napping? Just sort of curious if we're officially at war or if this is one of those "War on Drugs" or "War on Poverty" things.
mcdonje · 1h ago
Congress has been ceding power to the executive branch to greater and greater degrees over time. The president can effectively declare a war, even if not technically.
The founding fathers thought the different branches would want to keep their power. They didn't expect that feckless senators and representatives would want to hand off parts of their jobs so they could tell voters the bad happenings aren't their fault.
Oh and Israel bombed Qatar with implicit US approval.
altacc · 1h ago
Neither of these are something the US would ever react to diplomatically let alone militarily, except maybe to give Israel more weapons.
krapp · 1h ago
Congress hasn't declared war since WW2. If you think that sort of formality is still relevant, you've been napping for a while.
pbiggar · 1h ago
They don't declare war anymore if they can avoid it. Being at war comes with obligations and consequences, so they prefer to drone strike Yemen and Gaza without declaring war
spuz · 1h ago
You need to update your world model. Trump would very much like to officially declare war with Venezuela because it gives him certain wartime authorities (such as the Alien Enemies Act and the Insurrection Act) which he can use to to deport people without due process and deploy the armed forces domestically. This is why he ordered the destruction of a speedboat near Venezuela, has increased the bounty on the arrest of Venezuela's president Maduro and called him the head of the Cartel of the Suns. This is also why he is changing the department of defense to the department of war. He wants to use the pretense of war to subvert any checks against his power.
He likely does not want to actually invade anyone or do anything that brings actual war to the US but he does want the personal benefits that come with being at war.
Interesting. That does match what we've seen. Interesting his use of the word "terrorists" - they also use this word to describe the resistance against Israel's oppression. Truly a multi-faceted word that can be used to justify any crime against humanity!
krapp · 43m ago
>He wants to use the pretense of war to subvert any checks against his power.
What checks to his power?
The US is already in a state of emergency, one magically extended into infinity by the legislative branch redefining what a "day" is. The Alien Enemies act has already been used to justify Trump's mass deportation program as a war against the "invasion" of the US by immigrants, and that continues despite pushback from the courts, because Trump has declared openly that he doesn't consider himself bound by the courts.
And given what he's already gotten away with, his thesis seems to be correct. He isn't going to seek the pretense because he knows he doesn't need to.
defrost · 6h ago
It's part of the ongoing War on EDS (Epstein Derangement Syndrome).
So far that's going as well as the Wars on Drugs and Poverty did.
ChrisArchitect · 5h ago
That defense domain's been in use for like the whole mainstream history of the Internet probably right? That's a big one to just redirect all of a sudden. Is it just the public website redirected or every email address and whatever from history? Uggh
joelccr · 2h ago
Most US military email is @mail.mil, if I recall correctly. Still a huge change!
varispeed · 1h ago
Putin is having a laugh, having entire US administration dancing to his tune.
fehu22 · 2h ago
trump is planning world war three he may start it at any moment after he is space force comes into opera
bilekas · 1h ago
It's okay, while he may start it he will then end it and look to claim a nobel peace prize.
After all, "War and Peace" had a working title "War, what is it good for" before his mistress insisted he change it.
In reality the majority of the US military budget does not go to defence in the colloquial sense, it's far more about projecting US power globally (which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you think that the US is projecting it's power for good).
"War" is a better description and sounds less innocent than "defence" would imply, although I think you could argue that even this is a slightly misleading description.
This is a good name even if you are against wars like I am.
Calling it "Defense" just gives the wrong impression that most of the money goes towards "defending" ourselves instead of attacking others. We should avoid euphemisms when naming government agencies.
Not really. It's the old name of the Department of the Army. Except for the first nine years of the DoW's existence, the Navy had its own, independent department, as did the USAF once it was established as a separate branch.
The Department of Defense didn't exist until after WW2, and was called the National Military Establishment for the first couple of years.
You see a similar pattern in the UK, which had the War Office for the Army, the Admiralty for the Royal Navy and the Air Ministry for the RAF: after WW2, the Ministry of Defence was created, initially liaising and co-ordinating between the service ministries, and then fully absorbing and replacing them.
tl;dr the Department of War is the old name of the Department of the Army, not of the Department of Defense.
Completely untrue, because a statement such as this requires counter examples, comparators.
Compare the US to any colonial power. Such countries were hell bent on ruling the world. The Brits had the largest empire the world has ever seen, boots on ground in dozens of colonies. And everyone in Europe was invading each other, their colonies endlessly and constantly.
Compared to the scale and scope of action those colonial powers undertook, the US is the most peaceful and benevolent country ever.
Modern comparisons show much the same. For example, Canada was more than a decade in Afghanistan. Canada is not war like, but does think stamping out oppressive regimes is a good idea. Canada also has blue hats in multiple countries.
Those sort of actions may turn out poorly, but the intentions are not to harm but help. And yes, I agree that is debatable except we're talking about the statement I quoted.
And when you look at truly aggressive nations, such as Russia, again no comparison. When recently has the US invaded a country, with the goal of taking it over and absorbing it? That's right, never in living memory.
If US truly did what it had the power to do, it could have easily taken over the world.
Has it? Did it invade everyone? No.
Yes, the US does deploy its military might. Yes, maybe it should less often.
No, it isn't aggressive, it's just very powerful.
I would very much argue it restrains its use of power mightily.
Next youll tell us black people should really be slaves or go back to africa.
Thanks gyy
Can they change the ATF to the Department of Uncategorized Federal Overreach?
Also, NOAA should be called the Weather Force.
> It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.”
> These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.
* https://archive.today/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/arch...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Nichols_(academic)
The current president seems to think that this change is important, but Nichols goes over some previous presidents:
> That name was good enough for Truman, who served in combat in World War I and dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. And it was good enough for President Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander, who oversaw the largest military operations ever undertaken in all of human history.
> It was also good enough for John F. Kennedy, who served his country as a naval officer and nearly got killed during World War II. It was good enough for Lyndon B. Johnson, who won the Silver Star for his military service, and then, as commander in chief, embroiled the United States in a decade-long war in Southeast Asia. It was good enough for Naval Reserve officer Richard Nixon, who took over Johnson’s war and unleashed the fury of American bombers overseas. It was good enough for Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, both former Navy officers. It was good enough for Ronald Reagan, a former Army officer who as president pushed through a huge program of military expansion and modernization. It was good enough for his successor, George H. W. Bush, a decorated naval aviator who was shot down during combat in the Pacific.
* Ibid
I'm not sure at all about anything anyway. But right now, I have friends working for "Defense AI related" projects and knowing their interests in AI, I'm sure all the companies are doing is to stamp AI-ready label in the same missiles.
Remember that anyone can say that a linear model is AI.
The founding fathers thought the different branches would want to keep their power. They didn't expect that feckless senators and representatives would want to hand off parts of their jobs so they could tell voters the bad happenings aren't their fault.
Oh and Israel bombed Qatar with implicit US approval.
He likely does not want to actually invade anyone or do anything that brings actual war to the US but he does want the personal benefits that come with being at war.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/09/americas/venezuela-yvan-g...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwywjgynyxo
What checks to his power?
The US is already in a state of emergency, one magically extended into infinity by the legislative branch redefining what a "day" is. The Alien Enemies act has already been used to justify Trump's mass deportation program as a war against the "invasion" of the US by immigrants, and that continues despite pushback from the courts, because Trump has declared openly that he doesn't consider himself bound by the courts.
And given what he's already gotten away with, his thesis seems to be correct. He isn't going to seek the pretense because he knows he doesn't need to.
So far that's going as well as the Wars on Drugs and Poverty did.