President Trump signed an executive order on Friday that ceremonially recognized the Defense Department as the “Department of War,” a name that was dropped after World War II and that the president claimed had caused the country to enter wars it “never fought to win.”
“We won World War II. We won everything before, and as I said, we won everything in between,” Mr. Trump said at an event in the Oval Office, where he signed the order. “And we were very strong, but we never fought to win. We just didn’t fight to win.”
Mr. Trump argued that the name, which was changed by President Harry S. Truman to combine all of branches of the military, had been changed because the country “decided to go woke.”
“I think the Department of War sends a signal,” Mr. Trump said. The change, he argued, was a “much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now.”
He added: “We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or wokey, and we just fight forever.”
The Department of War was established by Congress under President George Washington in 1789, just months after the Constitution was ratified. Mr. Truman changed the agency’s name as part of the National Security Act he signed into law in 1947, which merged the Navy and War departments and a newly independent Air Force into a single organization. Congress established the Department of Defense name in 1949.
Mr. Trump said that he anticipated pushing to codify the name change into law. He added that in the meantime, “we’re going with it, and we’re going with it very strongly.” The Defense Department, he said, would be moving ahead with the name as a “secondary title,” including by using it on stationery.
Democrats quickly criticized Mr. Trump’s order.
“The president is good at P.R., but what really matters is a Pentagon grounded in the Constitution and focused on our adversaries, not politics and partisan perceptions,” said Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
The order also changed the secretary of defense title to “secretary of war.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an enthusiastic supporter of the name change, has already taken steps to change signs at the department. Last month, Mr. Hegseth had a gold-plated sign installed outside a conference room that read “W.A.R. Room,” apparently in honor of three unspecified presidents.
Mr. Hegseth, who joined Mr. Trump at the order signing, said that the name was about restoring what he called “warrior ethos” to the agency. He said that he agreed with Mr. Trump that “we haven’t won a major war since” the name was dropped after World War II.
Citing the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Hegseth said that he did not intend to disparage war fighters. “This name change is not just about renaming; it’s about restoring,” Mr. Hegseth said. “Words matter.”
Mr. Trump also used the opportunity to boast about the wars he has claimed to have ended and to muse about one — the war in Ukraine — he had promised to end but has not.
“I solved every one of them, and we’re going to get the other one done too,” he said. “But it turned out to be a little bit more difficult than I thought.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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