The War Department

The current President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has signed an executive order that will change the name of the Department of Defense to “Department of War”. This is an act that should not be ignored. Many of the executive orders that Trump has signed since the beginning of his second presidency may have slipped under our radar because new things happen every day; we can only pay attention to so much. I personally find this order significant for many reasons, some of which I can’t properly form and write, but I do want to talk about this today. [I’ve realized blogs don’t have to be formatted and professional, and I can write them whenever I want.]

Back in 1949, Harry S. Truman rebranded the U.S. War Department as the Department of Defense. At the time, deterrence was seen as the solution. Stalin was about to prove that Russia could handle nuclear war and the creation of the People’s Republic of China was afoot. It was a time when America didn’t want to be seen as provocative or “tough-guy”. Anything could’ve sparked the match that would light just about every major, influential country [at the time] aflame. This is to say, “we’re not firing first, but we will defend ourselves”. That has proved to be untrue, but that’s another discussion.

Upon receiving this news, I sat up in bed…and immediately lay back down. It didn’t fully register at the time that this was important. It was meant to send a message to other countries, even if it was a weak one with no substance. It will also spend millions to billions of dollars that should not be used. It also furthered my knowledge that Trump wants to be seen as a leader, not a servant of the people [which is what he’s supposed to be]. 

I’ve been trying to follow the news of everything he’s been signing, everything that he’s changing, and it is just so difficult. I’m an average college sophomore. I don’t know whether this is allowed. I’m not politically literate enough to know what he’s doing, why he’s doing it. All I can do is read the news and form an opinion. Many news journalists have fallen into sanewashing by the way, and that’s an entire separate issue that pisses me off. Studying to become a journalist in this climate is terrifying. I am absolutely terrified. 

This post is so not concise and leads practically nowhere, but I wanted to write down my thoughts as they came instead of trying to form a professional piece.

TLDR: The U.S. Department of Defense is being renamed to the “Department of War” and I fear no one is making a big enough deal about it. Shoutout NY Times for this article though.