8 ms·

I think it’s difficult to come up with hard and fast rules. But the fact that the US government (falsely) renamed their Department of Defense to Department of W

I think it’s difficult to come up with hard and fast rules. But the fact that the US government (falsely) renamed their Department of Defense to Department of War is perhaps a useful signal.

SllX 6d ago
Defense was always just a euphemism for War. That’s not the signal you think it is.
- charlesabarnes 6d ago
  Why isn't it? The change was clearly made to indicate the posture of the department. Either to US citizens or to powers abroad. Even though its "just" words it indicates intent.
  - shimman 6d ago
    Because the US has mostly been an imperial force of evil among the world, not a net benefit outsides of the elites that benefit from the deliberate colonialism + death. War Is a Racket is almost a 100 years old and it's about one man's feelings towards his manipulation in the banana wars [1] + middle east interventions. You can go back every century and see what damage colonialism has done both abroad and at home. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars
  - SllX 6d ago
    It was originally entitled “Department of War” and was changed after World War II for better PR. Whether it is called “Department of War” or “Department of Defense”, it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget. Personally, I view “Department of War” as more honest, because War has always been its business.
    - throw0101d 6d ago
      > Whether it is called “Department of War” or “Department of Defense”, it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget. The mission of the Department of War, which was its name pre-WW2, and the mission of the Department of Defence (post-WW2) is completely different: this is evidenced by the number of military personnel in the two time periods (and the draw-down in personal post-1990, after the Cold War ended): * https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066986/us-armed-forces-military-personnel-capita-historical/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066986/us-armed-forces-... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_military_personnel_and_expenditures.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_military_personnel_and...
    - JumpCrisscross 6d ago
      > it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget WWII demonstrated wars of conquest don't work in the industrial age. When America and its Department of War and Navy were founded, invasion and conquest could still be done profitably. WWII showed that was no longer true–industrial machinery and skilled workers are destroyed by invasion and even base resources quickly become useless when surrounded by people who hate you. (Nuclear weapons sealed the equation.) The Americans who fought in WWII saw that lesson firsthand and seem to have genuinely pivoted away from wars of conquest and annexation towards something closer to status quo preservation. We, of course, still went to war. But it was generally to help the current leader repel something or the other. The case in point for this is the truly devilish stuff having been shifted to the CIA's clandestine portfolio. Renaming the DoD the DoW basically says all that clandestine stuff wasn't shameful, it's good. It's a real message being written by idiots who don't know history or war and are mastered by their own insecurities.
      - SllX 6d ago
        Whether a war is fought defensively or offensively, war is still war. I don’t have a lot of patience for the romantic notions of men, that changing one word in a bureaucratic ensemble of Departments is going to change meaning of what it means to go to war or the reality of war itself. Only how we actually prosecute our wars & handle the subsequent consequences of war will give them any meaning.
- afavour 6d ago
  If they have identical meanings then why’d they change it?
  - SllX 6d ago
    I answered this in a sibling comment to yours.
    - afavour 6d ago
      I don’t think you did. You said the name makes no difference, I ask if that’s the case then why change it?
      - SllX 6d ago
        If this comment doesn’t adequately answer your question, please feel free to ask your follow-up questions either here or there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49649394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49649394 I just don’t want to copy & paste the same answer in multiple places.
- deleted 6d ago
  [deleted]
- throw0101d 6d ago
  > Defense was always just a euphemism for War. That’s not the signal you think it is. No, it was not. Tom Nichols, professor emiritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College: > It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.” > These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks[1] when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies. > In 1949, after two years that included a massive reorganization of the U.S. military (and the establishment of an air force), Truman christened the new United States Department of Defense, which consolidated elements of the previous War and Navy Departments. […] * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/defense-war-cringe-department/684112/ https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive... The Department of War had a different function for a different geopolitical outlook that no longer matched reality in the post-WW2 world.
  - edgyquant 6d ago
    Defense was an Orwellian spin on the greatest warfighting organization in the history of the world. This quote does nothing to change anything but is some weird appeal to authority when no authority is needed
  - tolerance 6d ago
    I don't think that quote helps your case or detracts from the parent. Tangentially—and perhaps counterintuitively—it can be taken as an argument in favor of the name change. The statement also does little to address the ethical concerns at the root of the relationship between industries and the military.

I think it’s difficult to come up with hard and fast rules. But the fact that the US government (falsely) renamed their Department of Defense to Department of War is perhaps a useful signal.

SllX 6d ago

Defense was always just a euphemism for War. That’s not the signal you think it is.

charlesabarnes 6d ago
Why isn't it? The change was clearly made to indicate the posture of the department. Either to US citizens or to powers abroad. Even though its "just" words it indicates intent.
- shimman 6d ago
  Because the US has mostly been an imperial force of evil among the world, not a net benefit outsides of the elites that benefit from the deliberate colonialism + death. War Is a Racket is almost a 100 years old and it's about one man's feelings towards his manipulation in the banana wars [1] + middle east interventions. You can go back every century and see what damage colonialism has done both abroad and at home. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars
- SllX 6d ago
  It was originally entitled “Department of War” and was changed after World War II for better PR. Whether it is called “Department of War” or “Department of Defense”, it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget. Personally, I view “Department of War” as more honest, because War has always been its business.
  - throw0101d 6d ago
    > Whether it is called “Department of War” or “Department of Defense”, it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget. The mission of the Department of War, which was its name pre-WW2, and the mission of the Department of Defence (post-WW2) is completely different: this is evidenced by the number of military personnel in the two time periods (and the draw-down in personal post-1990, after the Cold War ended): * https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066986/us-armed-forces-military-personnel-capita-historical/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066986/us-armed-forces-... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_military_personnel_and_expenditures.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_military_personnel_and...
  - JumpCrisscross 6d ago
    > it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget WWII demonstrated wars of conquest don't work in the industrial age. When America and its Department of War and Navy were founded, invasion and conquest could still be done profitably. WWII showed that was no longer true–industrial machinery and skilled workers are destroyed by invasion and even base resources quickly become useless when surrounded by people who hate you. (Nuclear weapons sealed the equation.) The Americans who fought in WWII saw that lesson firsthand and seem to have genuinely pivoted away from wars of conquest and annexation towards something closer to status quo preservation. We, of course, still went to war. But it was generally to help the current leader repel something or the other. The case in point for this is the truly devilish stuff having been shifted to the CIA's clandestine portfolio. Renaming the DoD the DoW basically says all that clandestine stuff wasn't shameful, it's good. It's a real message being written by idiots who don't know history or war and are mastered by their own insecurities.
    - SllX 6d ago
      Whether a war is fought defensively or offensively, war is still war. I don’t have a lot of patience for the romantic notions of men, that changing one word in a bureaucratic ensemble of Departments is going to change meaning of what it means to go to war or the reality of war itself. Only how we actually prosecute our wars & handle the subsequent consequences of war will give them any meaning.
afavour 6d ago
If they have identical meanings then why’d they change it?
- SllX 6d ago
  I answered this in a sibling comment to yours.
  - afavour 6d ago
    I don’t think you did. You said the name makes no difference, I ask if that’s the case then why change it?
    - SllX 6d ago
      If this comment doesn’t adequately answer your question, please feel free to ask your follow-up questions either here or there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49649394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49649394 I just don’t want to copy & paste the same answer in multiple places.
deleted 6d ago
[deleted]
throw0101d 6d ago
> Defense was always just a euphemism for War. That’s not the signal you think it is. No, it was not. Tom Nichols, professor emiritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College: > It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.” > These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks[1] when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies. > In 1949, after two years that included a massive reorganization of the U.S. military (and the establishment of an air force), Truman christened the new United States Department of Defense, which consolidated elements of the previous War and Navy Departments. […] * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/defense-war-cringe-department/684112/ https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive... The Department of War had a different function for a different geopolitical outlook that no longer matched reality in the post-WW2 world.
- edgyquant 6d ago
  Defense was an Orwellian spin on the greatest warfighting organization in the history of the world. This quote does nothing to change anything but is some weird appeal to authority when no authority is needed
- tolerance 6d ago
  I don't think that quote helps your case or detracts from the parent. Tangentially—and perhaps counterintuitively—it can be taken as an argument in favor of the name change. The statement also does little to address the ethical concerns at the root of the relationship between industries and the military.