During a White House press event on Aug. 25, President Donald Trump remarked that the Department of Defense name “didn’t sound good” to him.
“Department of Defense, I don’t want to be defense only,” he continued. “We want defense, but we want offense, too.
The president noted that under the old moniker, the Department of War, the United States enjoyed an “unbelievable history of victory” that included the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the wars against Native Americans, the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II.
“We don’t want endless contingencies and just playing defense,” he continued. “We think words and names and titles matter. So, we’re working with the White House and the president on it. Stand by.”
Origins of the War Department
In 1789, President George Washington signed legislation to create America’s first iteration of the War Department. Under Henry Knox, the first secretary of war, the Department of War replaced the wartime Board of War and Ordnance, which was established under Washington in 1776.
The act was responsible for “for military commissions, land and naval forces, warlike stores, Indian affairs, and granting lands for military services.” However, the War Department primarily oversaw the Army, with the Navy getting its own Cabinet-level department less than a decade later — which also oversaw the Marines.
That structure remained in place until 1947, when President Harry Truman received approval from Congress to create a National Defense Establishment. The NDE eventually took power from the Army and Navy, as well as the newly formed Air Force.
Just a few months after the conclusion of World War II, Truman announced his goal to implement a new governing structure for the military, as the war had induced a need for a more codified command structure.
“I recommend that the Congress adopt legislation combining the War and Navy Departments into one single Department of National Defense. Such unification is another essential step — along with universal training — in the development of a comprehensive and continuous program for our future safety and for the peace and security of the world.
One of the lessons which have most clearly come from the costly and dangerous experience of this war is that there must be unified direction of land, sea and air forces at home as well as in all other parts of the world where our Armed Forces are serving.
We did not have that kind of direction when we were attacked four years ago — and we certainly paid a high price for not having it.”
Cognizant of the potential pushback from the Army and Navy and its generals who might view the proposal as a threat to their service’s autonomy, Truman wrote in a White House press release on April 5, 1946, “Unification does not mean subordination of any branch of the service. It does not mean a loss of identity.
“It means just what the word says — unification. It means a concentration and cohesion of our best military thought and our best military resources, geared to maximum efficiency. It means using our experience in World War II for the peace of the world.”
However, Truman’s words of pacification did little to placate certain members of the Navy. In 1949, a small group of senior Navy officers took their private feud with the Army and Air Force public, calling into question the strategy to defeat a Soviet invasion of Europe and the allocation of scarce budget dollars, according to the U.S. Naval Institute.
The resulting civilian-military dustup, dubbed the “Revolt of the Admirals” would later involve two congressional hearings and amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 “that decisively shaped the character and organization of the military for the next half century,” according to the Air and Space Forces Magazine.
Revolt of the admirals
The cause for the revolt was twofold, arising from both a mismatch between the United States’ expansive postwar conception of its national security and the demands for fiscal orthodoxy, according to the U.S. Naval Institute.
In a tale as old as time, senior officials wanted a global presence in the wake of World War II — but didn’t want to pay for it. The Truman administration was determined to hold the defense budget to about $13 billion per year.
That relatively tight budget was split into thirds — one slice each for the land, air and the sea.
“This intensified the roles-and-missions struggle,” writes the Institute. “The Navy thought it was in danger of losing its air arm to the Air Force. The Air Force was convinced that the Navy was attempting to build a strategic air force of its own.”
According to historian Anand Toprani, there were two stages of the revolt. In the first, a civilian employee of the Navy (and a naval reservist) fabricated and then leaked to a sympathetic congressman (a retired reservist) an “Anonymous Document” accusing then Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington of corruption for favoring the procurement of the B-36 heavy bomber.
The publication of the document resulted in the first of two congressional hearings in August of 1949, which ultimately vindicated Johnson and Symington — much to the embarrassment of the Navy.
The second stage, according to Toprani, involved a Navy officer attached to the Joint Staff releasing an “internal Navy correspondence alleging that Johnson’s policies — including the cancellation of the first ‘supercarrier’ [USS United States (CVA-58)] back in April — were harmful to the Navy’s morale and detrimental to national security.”
The correspondence led to senior Navy officers publicly breaking with Johnson and Symington, describing the Air Force’s “fetish” for strategic bombing against the Soviet Union as immoral and ineffective.
Creation of the DOD
In light of this “revolt,” several amendments to the National Security Act were implemented, converting the National Military Establishment into the Department of Defense.
The amendments made the DOD a cabinet-level department and downgraded the services from executive to military departments. The secretary of defense gained complete “direction, authority, and control” over the entire department, becoming the “principal assistant to the President in all matters relating to the Department of Defense.”
In addition, changes to the National Security Act included the creation of a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who would directly advise both the president and the secretary of defense. Gen. Omar Bradley became the first chairman in 1949.
“We finally succeeded,” Truman noted, “in getting a unification act that will enable us to have unification, and as soon as we get the crybabies in the niches where they belong, we will have no more trouble.”
On Sept. 5, 2025, Trump issued an executive order to restore the use of the Department of War name, albeit as a “secondary title” for the Department of Defense.
As it stands, only an act of Congress can approve the permanent name change.
Claire Barrett is the Strategic Operations Editor for Sightline Media and a World War II researcher with an unparalleled affinity for Sir Winston Churchill and Michigan football.
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