September 7, 2025

On September 5 local time, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War, sparking widespread international attention. The White House said that the name "Department of War" conveys a stronger "message of readiness and resolve" compared to "Department of Defense." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explained that "we're going to go on the offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality." How should we view this?

The US "War Department," established in 1789, used to be the predecessor of the Department of Defense. The US government's reinstatement of this name is a continuation of its campaign to purge supporters of "globalism" within the US political realm. The White House believes that the postwar enthusiasm of "globalists" for interfering in European and Asia-Pacific affairs has led to the US' failure to win a single war in the past quarter-century and is one of the contributing factors to the country's current domestic and international predicament. The "Department of Defense," renamed after World War II, is synonymous with failure.

The "War Department" has specific historical origins. From 1789 to 1947, the US "War Department" expanded the US from a narrow country on the Atlantic coast into a powerful country spanning two oceans through one military victory after another. Native Americans, Mexicans, and others were either conquered or forced to cede vast tracts of land. Under US intimidation, nations like Russia, France and Britain were gradually forced to withdraw from the Americas. The current US administration believes that the US at that time enjoyed strong internal cohesion and a "surging" nationalist spirit, and that the current "loss" of American values and soaring national debt are the fault of "globalists," and for the US to win wars, it must rename the "Department of Defense" and recreate its history of leading the US military to achieve "glorious success."

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https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202509/1342894.shtml