Today’s planned executive order from the president purporting to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War is easy to mock. Sometimes it seems Donald Trump is determined to rename, rebrand, or debase every executive-branch institution he can reach, much like an animal marking its territory. His stated rationale for taking this step reflects his signature historical illiteracy.

“It used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound,” Trump said last month. “And as you know, we won World War I, we won World War II. We won everything.”

The underlying suggestion that the moniker Department of Defense was the work of postwar wimps and peaceniks is pretty hilarious when you recall (as Tom Nichols of The Atlantic reminds us) that the replacement o

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