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WASHINGTON: After months of campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, President Donald Trump sent a sharply different message on Friday when he signed an executive order aimed at rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War.
Trump said the switch was intended to signal to the world that the United States was a force to be reckoned with, and he complained that the Department of Defense’s name was “woke.”
“I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends, really, a message of strength,” Trump said of the change as he authorized the Department of War as a secondary title for the Pentagon.
Congress has to formally authorize a new name, and several of Trump’s closest supporters on Capitol Hill proposed legislation earlier Friday to codify the new name into law.
But already there were cosmetic shifts. The Pentagon’s website went from “defense.gov” to “war.gov.” Signs were swapped around Hegseth’s office while more than a dozen employees watched. Trump said there would be new stationery, too.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom Trump has begun referring to as the “secretary of war,” said during the signing ceremony that “we’re going to go on offense, not just on defense,” using “maximum lethality” that won’t be “politically correct.”
The attempted rebranding was another rhetorical salvo in Trump’s efforts to reshape the US military and uproot what he has described as progressive ideology. Bases have been renamed, transgender soldiers have been banned and websites have been scrubbed of posts honoring contributions by women and minorities to the armed forces.
He’s also favored aggressive — critics say illegal — military action despite his criticism of “endless wars” under other administrations. He frequently boasts about the stealth bomber strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and he recently ordered the destruction of a boat that the US says was carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela.
The Republican president insisted that his tough talk didn’t contradict his fixation on being recognized for diplomatic efforts, saying peace must be made from a position of strength. Trump has claimed credit for resolving conflicts between India and Pakistan; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Armenia and Azerbaijan, among others. (He’s also expressed frustration that he hasn’t brought the war between Russia and Ukraine to a conclusion as fast as he wanted.)
“I think I’ve gotten peace because of the fact that we’re strong,” Trump said, echoing the “peace through strength” motto associated with President Ronald Reagan
When Trump finished his remarks on the military, he dismissed Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from the room.
“I’m going to let these people go back to the Department of War and figure out how to maintain peace,” Trump said.
Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube proposed legislation in the House to formally change the name of the department.
“From 1789 until the end of World War II, the United States military fought under the banner of the Department of War,” Steube, an Army veteran, said in a statement. “It is only fitting that we pay tribute to their eternal example and renowned commitment to lethality by restoring the name of the ‘Department of War’ to our Armed Forces.”
Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, are introducing companion legislation in the Senate.
The Department of War was created in 1789, then renamed and reorganized through legislation signed by President Harry Truman in 1947, two years after the end of World War II. The Department of Defense incorporated the Department of War, which oversaw the Army, plus the Department of the Navy and the newly created independent Air Force.
Hegseth complained that “we haven’t won a major war since” the name was changed. Trump said, “We never fought to win.”
Trump and Hegseth have long talked about restoring the Department of War name.
In August, Trump told reporters that “everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”
When confronted with the possibility that making the name change would require an act of Congress, Trump told reporters that “we’re just going to do it.”
“I’m sure Congress will go along,” he said, “if we need that.”
Trump and Hegseth have been on a name-changing spree at the Pentagon, sometimes by sidestepping legal requirements.
For example, they wanted to restore the names of nine military bases that once honored Confederate leaders, which were changed in 2023 following a congressionally mandated review.
Because the original names were no longer allowed under law, Hegseth ordered the bases to be named after new people with similar names. For example, Fort Bragg now honors Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient from Maine, instead of Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg.
In the case of Fort A.P. Hill, named for Confederate Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill, the Trump administration was forced to choose three soldiers to make the renaming work.
The base now honors Union soldiers Pvt. Bruce Anderson and 1st Sgt. Robert A. Pinn, who contributes the two initials, and Lt. Col. Edward Hill, whose last name completes the second half of the base name.
The move irked Republicans in Congress who, in July, moved to ban restoring any Confederate names in this year’s defense authorization bill.
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who co-sponsored the earlier amendment to remove the Confederate names, said that “what this administration is doing, particularly this secretary of defense, is sticking his finger in the eye of Congress by going back and changing the names to the old names.”
 

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Friday said India and Russia seem to have been “lost” to China after their leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, expressing his annoyance at New Delhi and Moscow as Beijing pushes a new world order. “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” Trump wrote in a social media post accompanying a photo of the three leaders together at Xi’s summit in China. Later on Friday, however, he told reporters he didn’t think the US had lost India to China. “I don’t think we have,” he said. “I’ve been very disappointed that India would be buying so much oil, as you know, from Russia. And I let them know that.” Asked about Trump’s social media post, India’s foreign ministry told reporters in New Delhi that it had no comment. The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment and representatives for the Kremlin could not be immediately reached.
Xi hosted more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Putin and Modi were seen holding hands at the summit as they walked toward Xi before all three men stood side by side. “I’ll always be friends with Modi,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “He’s a great prime minister. He’s great. I’ll always be friends, but I just don’t like what he’s doing at this particular moment. But India and the United States have a special relationship. There’s nothing to worry about. We just have moments on occasion.” Trump has chilled US-India ties amid trade tensions and other disputes. Trump this week said he was “very disappointed” in Putin but not worried about growing Russia-China ties.
Trump has been frustrated at his inability to convince Russia and Ukraine to reach an end to their war, more than three years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.
He told reporters on Thursday night at the White House that he planned to talk to Putin soon.