Tom Nichols writes:

In 1949, after two years that included a massive reorganization of the U.S. military (and the establishment of an air force), Truman christened the new United States Department of Defense, which consolidated elements of the previous War and Navy Departments. 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.

Later presidents left the name alone too, perhaps because the rest of the world by the end of the 20th century had adopted the same name for their military organizations. Trump and Hegseth might think defense is a word for weenies, but the Chinese and the Russians, both of whom have ministries of defense, don’t seem to agree. (The Russians were even ahead of the Americans: The Kremlin created a “People’s Commissariat of Defense of the Soviet Union” in the 1930s, renamed part of it the “Ministry of War” briefly in the early 1950s, then settled on the “Ministry of Defense” in 1953.) North Korea has a Ministry of National Defense; Iran has a Ministry of National Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. If Trump thinks Moscow and Beijing will tremble when Hegseth orders the new stationery that says “War” on it, he’s in for a surprise.

And about that paperwork: The cost of renaming the DOD will run into tens of millions of dollars, maybe much more. Isn’t this an administration that only months ago unleashed an ignorant bazillionaire on the federal workforce in the name of efficiency and cost reductions? Everything from official seals to uniform patches and medals might have to be replaced—and for what? Because a president who never served a day in uniform and a macho-obsessed former Army major think that using words like war will provide the sense of purpose and gravity they both lack? [Continue reading…]