{"id":13793,"date":"2025-10-03T00:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T04:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/thediplomaticenvoy\/?p=13793"},"modified":"2025-10-03T00:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T04:26:07","slug":"department-of-war-a-mistake-more-than-just-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/thediplomaticenvoy\/2025\/10\/03\/department-of-war-a-mistake-more-than-just-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Department of War: A Mistake More than just Words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Elijah Novak\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Staff Writer<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/kirsten-a-davies-nominee-to-be-chief-information-officer-of-news-photo\/2235539376?adppopup=true\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On September 5 2025, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/09\/restoring-the-united-states-department-of-war\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">White House<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> announced Executive Order 14347: Restoring the United States Department of War. This action marks a complex change in the international and domestic political scenery of the United States. It signifies internationally, the change of the long-lasting narrative of American ideals. Words and their connotations speak volumes, and questioning the legitimacy behind American action may lead to the loss of international prestige.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">War at its most basic construction is an exchange of violent action between two sides, in pursuit of a goal. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stated that with the name change comes a revival of the \u201cwarrior ethos.\u201d In addition to this, he began to list a number of juxtapositions including \u201cmaximum lethality, not tepid legality\u201d and \u201cviolent effect not politically correct\u201d reported <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=taSQfQ6pfnA\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">NBC<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0 Interpreting the language used by the Secretary of War opens up speculation around our objectives, so traditionally held as the American ideals of peace, international stability, freedom, and democracy. If the Cold War taught the world anything, it is that fear and a pride in violence does not lead to domestic or international peace. The long debate about the US influence to help support and maintain a global social order-through diplomacy, trade, or defensive interventions \u2013 appears to be compromised by the language of \u201cwar\u201d and its \u201cmaximum lethality, not tepid legality.\u201d\u00a0 Ideals can be witnessed, protected, inspired, and sustained through other methods than \u201cwar.\u201d\u00a0 If you need an offensive war to institute the good, you are not instituting the good. For those questioning if this way of thinking is too idealistic, we may focus on the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.army.mil\/values\/oath.html#:~:text=I%2C%20_____%2C%20do%20solemnly%20swear,amendment%20effective%205%20October%201962).\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">oath of office<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> taken by the military to \u201csupport and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSupporting and defending\u201d have less synchronicity with \u201cwar\u201d than with \u201cdefense.\u201d\u00a0 War is often and should be the last choice.\u00a0 At its core the oath of the armed forces is anchored in the law of the land. The Constitution, while not perfect, is continually evolving in pursuit of a more perfect union..\u00a0 We should focus on the defense of the Constitution, rather than seeking out war.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As Americans, we usually identify war-like rhetoric with other, aggressive countries, but not our own. When we use words like \u201cwar\u201d in a governmental setting, we are using rhetoric similar to that of Russian President Putin. In his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin referred to the United States, as an \u201cempire of lies,\u201d and as a \u201ccon artist\u201d who forcefully uses its ideals as a method of influence, reported <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/02\/24\/world\/europe\/us-putin-nuclear-war-nato.html#:~:text=Peleckis\/Getty%20Images-,Advertisement,'%E2%80%9D\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New York Times<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Putin\u2019s rhetoric is aggressive, blunt, and direct. The world\u2019s negative response to Putin\u2019s action shows the international consequences of aggressive rhetoric. Words matter, and aggressive words tend to stay longer in the ear than more peaceful ones. If U.S. defense forces are sent in on a peace-keeping mission, it seems odd that the mission for peace and stability is under the auspice of the Department of War. There is a reason why the U.S. Air Force bases in our allied countries do not call those locations Air \u201cForce\u201d Bases, but rather air bases. \u201cForce\u201d implies imposition, rather than collaboration. The legitimacy of the United States lies in our rhetoric of peace and stability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another consideration of the change from \u201cdefense\u201d to \u201cwar\u201d may be from the taxpayer. The renaming of the Department of War does more damage to the U.S.\u2019s military industrial complex, then good. For Trisha Bannerjee &amp; Nathanial Zetter at the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/opinion\/story\/2025-09-18\/department-of-war-renaming-history\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Los Angeles Times<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the Department of War signifies the truth of America\u2019s long violent history.\u00a0 The department\u2019s new name \u201ccuts through the rhetoric America has used for decades to claim that it is defending peace even as it continuously wages wars.\u201d Bannerjee and Zetter argue that pulling back the \u201cdefense\u201d veil to reveal the bluntness of\u00a0 \u201cwar\u201dmay finally make the U.S. taxpayer open their eyes that how we fund aggressive military buildup and actions. America never has been stingy with defense budgets by any measure of international comparison or domestic slices of the tax spending.\u00a0 The U.S. Department of Defense has not seen a funding decrease as significantly as other government departments. Anti-war movements are common, anti-defense movements are not. Spending on defense is easier to sell for politicians than spending on war. By renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War, the United States government may spur an awareness among the citizens that taxes are going to \u201cwar\u201d and not preparing for \u201cdefense.\u201d Perhaps beyond taxes, the words \u201cdefend and support\u201d more align with the disposition of the U.S. citizens who hold ideals that are worth protecting as part of our identity, rather than a war which we would threaten to prosecute.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Image courtesy of\u00a0<em>Getty Images<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On September 5 2025, the White House announced Executive Order 14347: Restoring the United States Department of War. This action marks a complex change in the international and domestic political scenery of the United States. It signifies internationally, the change of the long-lasting narrative of American ideals. Words and their connotations speak volumes, and questioning the legitimacy behind American action may lead to the loss of international prestige.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5832,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2845,382],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2845","category-international-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Department of War: A Mistake More than just Words - The Diplomatic Envoy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/thediplomaticenvoy\/2025\/10\/03\/department-of-war-a-mistake-more-than-just-words\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Department of War: A Mistake More than just Words - The Diplomatic Envoy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On September 5 2025, the White House announced Executive Order 14347: Restoring the United States Department of War. 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