On September fifth of 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename the Pentagon, also known as the Department of Defense, to the “Department of War.” When speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that this title better described the military’s role, given the current state of the world. Trump’s executive order allowed the Department of Defense and subordinate officials to also fall under the title “Department of War.”
Once Trump signed the order, Pentagon officials changed the signage outside of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office and also rerouted their website from defense.gov to war.gov. In many headlines, the Pentagon, often referred to as DOD (Department of Defense), has already been replaced by DOW (Department of War) in various headlines.
Delving deeper into the name change, some officials, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth believes the name change to be good and the government should “go on offense, not just on defense” and that the country needs to “raise up warriors, not just defenders.” These ideas were shared throughout the Department of War and could even relate all the way to the attack on Pearl Harbor, where the Japanese viewed America as a place that only played defense and fought for neutrality. Even though America won that war, it still suffered losses, so having other nations now view America’s military power as something on the offensive, they won’t consider striking first.
Fact checkers revealed in their fact sheet that Trump needs Congress’s assistance to make the change permanent. Trump, being unsure about this statement, said, “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out, but I’m not sure they have to.” Congress does need to be involved in order to finalize permanent name changes, as it was also involved with the Pentagon’s first name change to the Department of Defense in 1949.
