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The first thing to say about President Donald Trump’s executive order changing the name of the “Department of Defense” to the “Department of War ” is that it’s purely performative and won’t change a thing, except maybe the clench of Pete Hegseth’s jaw. (When Trump announced the new name, the former Fox News host and National Guard major tweeted it in exuberant all-caps.)

That doesn’t mean the shift isn’t troubling. It reflects a shallowly provocative attitude toward world politics ( shallow or provocative would be bad enough, but shallowly provocative is dangerous). It is puzzlingly out of step with Trump’s own efforts to tout himself as a peacemaker. An

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