Is It Still the Department of ‘War’ or Not?

In September, Donald Trump renamed the Department of Defense to its previous title, the Department of War.

The president said at the time, “It used to be called the Department of War and it had a stronger sound… We want defense, but we want offense too.” Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth would add, “This name change is not just about renaming, it’s about restoring.”

“Words matter,” he insisted.

Words do matter. Both Trump and Hegseth both promised at various times that this administration would not seek new or endless wars, yet also seemed to want to emphasize that the Pentagon is about one thing and one thing only: war. Calling it mere “defense” would no longer do.

Which is why after the U.S. went to war with Iran on February 28, President Donald Trump would say forthrightly, “We’re doing very well on the warfront.” 

“We may have casualties,” the president also said. “That often happens in war.”

Hegseth said last Sunday, “We set the terms of this war.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday, “9,000 Americans have been able to leave the region since the start of this war.”

So, we’re at war, spearheaded by America’s Department of War.

Easy enough to define, yes? Well, not according to Republican members of Congress, who this week had to vote on allowing the president to continue his unilateral war on Iran.

Top warmonger and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had the gall to say, “I don’t know if this is technically a war.”

Republican Senator and new Homeland Security Chief nominee Markwayne Mullin said, “We haven’t declared war… they have declared war on us.”

As the New York Times noted, Republicans described “the widening conflict as a ‘major combat operation,’ a ‘mission,’ ‘hostilities’ or really just anything other than ‘war.’”

Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote against this war last week in the Senate.

On the House side, the Thursday vote to allow Trump to continue his war with Iran broke against the resolution 212–219, with the only Republicans voting against it being Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio.

As for the Republicans who voted for war, Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska contended that it was not a war but just “a significant military operation.”

Florida’s Rep. Anna Paulina Luna insists, “Strategic strikes are not war.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson of Louisiana led his party in pretending the U.S. is not at war, saying, “They declared war on us…we’re not at war right now.” Johnson said last week, “We’re not at war right now. We’re four days into a very specific, clear mission—an operation.”

Massie called Johnson’s remarks, “Orwellian levels of double speak.”

He’s right. This is semantics. It is the job of Congress to declare war and the job of the commander-in-chief to execute it. Right now, the president is just going to war on his own, something many presidents this century and the last have done with the acquiescence of Congress.

Republicans refusing to call the United States’ current military actions in Iran a war are abdicating their congressional duty. In doing so, lawmakers likely hope they can salvage their reputations if this war goes south, as Iraq did. The 2002 Iraq war votes haunted many of the politicians who cast them for years.

How this war ends or ends up is unknown. What is known is that U.S. military action in Vietnam was never declared a war either, just a “police action.” But ask any veteran of that conflict if it was a war, and you might get a different answer.

Americans didn’t always play such semantic games. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, did Americans consider that attack “strategic strikes” or just a “major combat operation?” No, they considered it war. So did Congress, which declared it such, marking the last time Congress would declare any of America’s wars as is constitutionally required.

What kind of action in Iran, exactly, is America’s Department of War pursuing right now?

When the Trump administration renamed the Department of Defense in September, antiwar libertarian icon and former Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas agreed with the change, writing, “the US has been at war nearly constantly since the end of World War II, so it’s not like the ‘Defense Department’ has been in any way a defensive department.”

Paul added, “With that in mind, returning the Department of Defense to the Department of War, which is how it started, may not be such a bad idea after all — as long as we can be honest about the rest of the terms around our warmaking.”

Honesty about the terms we use is a great idea. A necessary idea.

Especially when it comes to war.