In 1947, the Department of the United States became the Ministry of Defense, because our nation came in what would be four decades of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and took his place as a global super power.
On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that brought the original name back to the department founded by George Washington in 1789. It entails a change that would have earned the warm approval of our first president.
Order Trump characters back to ‘Department of War’
In the 78 years in which the United States has had a ‘Ministry of Defense’, we never voted the war once, but that did not stop thousands and thousands of American soldiers to sacrifice their lives in Korea, Vietnam and later, the Central East.
During this time, the United States became a large scale as the policeman of the world. Without actually explaining wars, we played a violent game from Twister around the world, our Ministry of Defense immersed its toes in conflicts on continents.
President Donald Trump and Pentagon Baas Pete Hegseeth. (Getty Images)
Too often the role of our soldiers was not to kill the enemy, but to maintain order, and just like a police, the use of total force against criminals was kept, our army was too often not allowed to bring its full strength.
There is a fundamental and important difference between war and police. Wars can be won, the police cannot. Police is an endless struggle, and that is exactly how the military interventions of America felt like under the regime of the Ministry of Defense.
“I also want to be offensive,” Trump made the name change. But what he really means is that he wants wars that we can win, not endless nation -building boundgles that are meant to maintain the balance in a world full of fire from Ukraine to Gaza.
War from war secretary, as he is now known, has made it clear that his priority is deadliness, not just a stick for diplomats to use. He wants an army, not a police.
It was Carl von Clausewitz, the early 19th century father of the Modern War, who defined the military victory as a mandatory the enemy to do you by destroying their desire and resources to resist. That is something our army has not done for a while.
But that can change.
It was no coincidence that this change in the name at the level of cabinet took place in the aftermath of the Trump government that blows an alleged speedboat full of drugs and drug smugglers from Venezuela to Smitherens.
Under the old section that boat could have stopped, the crew received the rights of Miranda. In other words, it would have been checked.
Video images showed the ship shortly before it was destroyed from Venezuela on 2 September 2025. (@realdonaldtrump via Truth Social)
But does this mere police work actually work, per clausewitz, to destroy the will and will of the Venezuelan gangs and means to flood our country with deadly drugs? It does not do that, it only maintains the status quo from the border to the cemetery.
But now, the next boys in line to jump on board a boat -loaded boat on the way to Florida, don’t look at the possible prison sentence, in facilities all except run by their gangs. No, they look at a rapid exit at eternity under the sea.
Likewise, Trump’s direct attack on the nuclear facilities of Iran sent a new message to the Ayatollah that if he goes too far, we will destroy him and his nation.
Click here for more the opinion of Fox News
The Ministry of Defense, may it rest in peace, was a noble idea. It was launched in the spirit of ending war, not winning wars. It was intended to support democracies around the planet until all nations found the law and only the path of freedom and capitalism.
It may have been worth a chance, but it just didn’t work, and that’s why the Trump administration returns to the original starting point that armies do not exist to protect and serve the world, they exist to kill our enemies.
Not long after President Washington had founded the war department, he would give a farewell address in which it was warned against foreign complications, and yet under the name Department of Defense, our army seemed to do little else.
President Trump sends the message that the United States will no longer defend itself by proportional half measures and never ending peace missions. No, from now on the Ministry of War does not exist to contain or limit our enemies, it exists, as it should be, to destroy them.
Click here to Van David Marcus
