One thing we in the English-speaking world are very good at is dressing up our language. We don't just have very specific words for very specific things; we have a myriad of slang words to describe them as well. English is very contextual to a degree that we can have a singular word that can mean 12 different things depending on how we say it.
While this makes the English language a really fun one to speak, it also brings with it the ability to soften things, especially in an advanced nation where being softer is seen as a virtue. This isn't always a bad thing, as many a psychologist will tell you, but it does sometimes encourage you to soften something to the point where it becomes a lie.
I see the "Department of Defense" as one such lie.
As you've likely heard, President Donald Trump had the DoD renamed to the Department of War. It's my understanding that Congress has to finalize the name change before it can be absolute, but regardless, the operating name is now the DoW.
My friend and colleague Ward Clark put it well in his article on the change:
Our military forces are in the business of war. War is their trade. Pete Hegseth has vowed to build a force of warfighters. This change just recognizes that, and it also is another of the Trump administration's willingness to call a spade a spade.
Read: Meet Pete Hegseth, Now Secretary of War
This is, in my opinion, the biggest benefit of the change. The military is a dangerous, well-trained, well-equipped warfighting body. Can it mount a defense? Of course, but that's like saying my computer, on which I edit videos, write articles, stream football games, and play games, is just a machine for watching YouTube videos.
The truth is that our military is built for war. It can do other things, but war is its primary function. To focus on "defense" is misleading, and more than that, I think it can be dangerously deceiving for everyone.
I'm a huge fan of the show "Band of Brothers," and anyone who's seen it is likely a huge fan too. It's hard not to love that miniseries. It's based on a book written by Stephen Ambrose, who wrote a lot about American soldiers in WW2, including one called "Citizen Soldiers," which I believe should be required reading in every university, if not every high school.
The book dives into the ingenuity and daring of American soldiers and how their ferocity and problem-solving abilities made them so terrifying. To our U.K. allies, we looked chaotic and disorganized, often improvisational, but the effectiveness couldn't be denied.
We were there to win a war, and we did what we had to in order to achieve that goal. Sometimes that meant that when we needed to get creative, we did. When we needed to change things up to make sure victory was achieved, we did. If we needed to go outside the playbook to get the best result possible, we did.
We were there to fight a war and win.
This is the essence of warfighting. Lives are on the line, global politics are on the table. Too often, great evil is what we're fighting against, and great evil only benefits from half-measures and by-the-book instructions. War is chaos, so dedication to winning means being willing to be a little chaotic yourself.
There's another movie that I really love, but it highlights exactly how destructive the "defense" idea can be, and that movie is "Black Hawk Down."
This is a film based on a book of the same name, and it highlights the Clinton Administration's efforts in Somalia.
What started off as a Bush-era attempt to defend humanitarian aid lines in the region became a nation-building effort under Bill Clinton. The U.N. wanted to establish a Somali government, which meant taking down the head terrorist in the region, Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
I'll spare you all the details, but the long and short of it is that Clinton went from protecting convoys to effectively engaging in war without calling it one, and without calling it one, our troops had their hands tied behind their backs. Armor and heavy firepower weren't allowed in order to avoid civilian casualties. What options our troops did have were often limited in use because of the urban environment. They also had to follow specific rules of engagement that put our men in serious danger, and got too many of them killed or injured.
Our government's position was confusing. Were we there for humanitarian reasons? Were we there to kill terrorists? Were we there to hunt a warlord? Clinton's inability to fully define the mission allowed creep to set in, and it cost lives. If Clinton had just committed to war in totality, then things likely would've turned out far differently.
This is, to me, an example of "defense." You had the most powerful military in the world, with firepower that only God could outmatch, and we were defeated in Somalia. Not by the locals or a terrorist organization, but our unwillingness to be honest about what it is our military does best, which is wage war. Clinton was so busy trying to appear "compassionate" and look like the good guy that he tied our men's hands behind their backs in order to make it appear like something other than what it was: a war against a terrorist organization to establish a stable government.
Trump, who seems to understand what war is, its purpose, and why it can be quick and decisive, seems to get it. His name-change isn't just optics, in my opinion, it's a remembrance of what it is the military is and what it does.
