US President Donald Trump hinted that his administration will change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War in the coming days, "Politico" reported, BTA writes.
"We want to be defensive, but we also want to be offensive if necessary," the president told reporters during an event in the Oval Office, CBS reported.
Trump indicated that in about a week, officials "probably" will return the Pentagon to the more aggressive name it once had. Both he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has vowed to restore the department's "warlike character," have repeatedly expressed regret over the name change after World War II.
"When we won World War I, World War II, it was called the War Department, and I think that's what it should be called," Trump said at a news conference with South Korean President Lee Jae-myeon. "Everybody liked it, and we had an incredible history of winning when it was the War Department. Then we renamed it the Defense Department.".
The U.S. War Department existed from 1789 until 1947, when President Harry Truman's administration split the department into an Army and an Air Force and merged them with the then-independent Navy. Truman names the new cabinet-level institution the Department of Defense, recalls "Politico".
When asked whether Congress would have to approve the restoration of the department's old name, since lawmakers have adopted the current name, Trump replied that he did not think so: "We will just do it. I'm sure Congress will agree if necessary. I don't think it will be necessary at all," he said, quoted by CBS.
The television network notes that for months the US president has hinted at changing the name of the federal government's largest department, at one point last month in an article in "Truth Social" calling Hegseth his "Secretary of War". The old name - Department of War - was abandoned because "we became politically correct," Trump said at a press conference in June.