President Donald Trump wrapped up the week Friday signing an executive order to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
The executive order gives the green light to use the name ‘Department of War’ as a secondary title for the Department of Defense, along with terms like ‘secretary of war’ for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, according to a White House fact sheet.
The order also calls for Hegseth to propose both legislative and executive actions to permanently cement the title as the U.S. Department of War.
Additionally, a White House official told Fox News Digital that implementing the order would mean making alterations to public-facing websites and office signage at the Pentagon. For example, one change on the horizon is renaming the public affairs briefing room the ‘Pentagon War Annex,’ the official said, noting other longer-term projects also will emerge.
The U.S. previously used the Department of War title for its military agency until 1949, but modified it to the Department of Defense to align with multiple reforms included in the National Security Act of 1947.
Trump signaled in late August the change might happen.
‘Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War,’ Trump told reporters Aug. 25. ‘Then we changed it to Department of Defense.’
Here’s what also happened this week:
War on cartels
Trump also announced that the U.S. military strike against an alleged drug-laden Venezuelan boat in the southern Caribbean killed 11 suspected Tren de Aragua narco-terrorists Tuesday.
Trump shared a video on social media Tuesday depicting the strike against the Venezuelan vessel, just days after he authorized sending three U.S. Navy guided missile destroyers to enhance the administration’s counternarcotics efforts in the region.
‘You had massive amounts of drugs,’ Trump told reporters Wednesday about the recent strike. ‘We have tapes of them speaking. It was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people. And everybody fully understands that fact. You see it, you see the bags of drugs all over the boat and they were hit.’
‘Obviously, they won’t be doing it again. And I think a lot of other people won’t be doing it again. When they watch that tape, they’re going to say, ‘Let’s not do this.’ We have to protect our country, and we’re going to. Venezuela has been a very bad actor.’
After the deployment of the destroyers, Maduro said Venezuela was ready to respond to any attacks and said the ship’s presence in the region was ‘an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.’
‘In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela,’ Maduro said during a Monday press conference.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon confirmed Thursday that two Venezuelan aircraft buzzed a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters.
‘This highly provocative move was designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations,’ the Defense Department wrote in a statement posted to X. ‘The cartel running Venezuela is strongly advised not to pursue any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counter-narcotics and counter-terror operations carried out by the U.S. military.’
Space Command HQ move
Trump also unveiled plans Tuesday to move Space Command’s headquarters from Colorado to Alabama — putting an end to the controversy about where the command would be based.
Space Command has been operating out of Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but Trump long has backed moving the command’s headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama. But in 2023, former President Joe Biden announced that the command would remain based in Colorado.
‘The U.S. Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City,’ Trump told reporters Tuesday.
