Trump rebrands U.S. Defense Department to Department of War to 'send message of victory'

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to rebrand the U.S. Department of Defense to the Department of War, as a secondary title.

This is a callback to the department's original name used from 1789 to 1947, and aims to project strength and resolve, according to a factsheet by The White House.

"We won the First World War. We won the Second World War. We won everything before that and in between. And then we decided to go woke and we changed the name to Department of Defense", Trump said at the signing on Sep. 5 (local time), NBC and Reuters reported.

'It sends a message of victory': Trump

Trump pointed out that after rebranding to the Defense Department, victories turned into more prolonged conflicts that often resulted in a "sort of tie".

"So we're going Department of War".

Trump said, "I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends really a message of strength. We're very strong. We're much stronger than anyone would really understand."

He also said that they had been talking about the rebrand "for months".

Department of War will now serve as the department's secondary title, and can be used in internal and external communications, while the administration seeks approval from congress to make the change permanent.

The new title has already been updated on the department's website and social media handles.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been pushing for months to revert to the original name to help cement a "warrior ethos", NBC reported.

He will be now known as the Secretary of War.

"We're going to go on offence, not just on defence. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality; violent effect, not politically correct," Hegseth said.

"We're going to raise up warriors, not just defenders".

Likely an expensive rebranding

The name change comes days after a U.S. navy airstrike killed 11 people on a small boat in international waters, The Guardian reported.

The military said it involved a drug vessel operated by a Venezuelan gang, but critics questioned whether such a strike is lawful under international law.

The cost of the rebranding has been estimated to cost more than US$1 billion to overhaul hundreds of Pentagon agencies, from letterheads, to uniforms, and keychains in the Pentagon store, according to U.S. political newspaper Politico.

When asked about how much the name change would cost, Trump said, "Not a lot. We know how to rebrand without going crazy."

Top image from Charlie Kirk/X & Pete Hegseth/X