President Donald Trump walks off stage after speaking at Fort Bragg on June 10, 2025.

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Sept. 5 changing the name of the Department of Defense to the "Department of War," reviving a name that was abandoned during a 1947 Cabinet reorganization.

The move, confirmed by a White House official, is intended to reflect what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has described as the administration's effort to instill the "warrior ethos" across the armed forces.

Trump suggested the change during remarks to reporters on Aug. 25. "It used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound," Trump said. "And as you know, we won World War I, we won World War II. We won everything."

Fox News first reported on Trump's plans to sign the executive order.

A White House summary of the order obtained by USA TODAY said the action will restore "Department of War" as a secondary name for the Defense Department. The order authorizes Hegseth to use secondary titles such as "Secretary of War," "Department of War," and "Deputy Secretary of War" in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch, according to the White House.

All executive departments and agencies will be required to recognize and accommodate the change to "Department of War" in internal and external communications. The order further instructs Hegseth to recommend legislative and executive actions to "permanently rename the U.S. Department of Defense to the U.S. Department of War."

"As the president has said, we're not just defense, we're offense," Hegseth said in a Sept. 3 appearance on Fox News. "We're reestablishing at the department the 'warrior ethos.' We want warriors, folks that know how to exact lethality on the enemy. We don't want endless contingencies and just playing defense. We think words and names and titles matter."

The Trump administration has not provided a cost estimate on changing references from Department of Defense to Department of War throughout the government.

The Department of War was established in 1789 as the original Cabinet department overseeing the U.S. Army. A separate Department of the Navy was created the same year.

The Department of War was dissolved after World War II by the National Security Act of 1947, which merged the Army and Navy departments and created a new Air Force, jointly known as the National Military Establishment (NME), during the presidency of Harry Truman.

The NME was renamed the Defense Department in 1949. The name was chosen in part to signal that in the nuclear age, the United States was focused on preventing wars, according to historians.

The move to go back to the Department of War comes, ironically, as Trump has tried to cast himself as a peacemaker in several international conflicts, while also flexing the might of the U.S. military.

"Restoring the name 'Department of War' will sharpen the focus of this Department on our national interest and signal to adversaries America’s readiness to wage war to secure its interests," the White House summary of the order said.

Contributing: Reuters

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President Trump to sign order renaming Pentagon the 'Department of War'

Reporting by Joey Garrison, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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