How’s the Department of War sound to you?

That’s our Question of the Week for readers.

The moniker apparently has a nice ring for President Donald Trump, who last week said that he wants to see the name changed from what the federal government entity overseeing the nation’s armed forces has been for the last 75 years: the Department of Defense.

Trump first floated the idea last month in the Oval Office, saying it sounded “like a better name” and that he believed “we’re going to have to go back to that.”

Is War Department really a better name, one more reflective of a country ready to pro-actively fight for its interests, or is it an offensive homage to perpetually being on the offensive?

It’s very true that War Department was its title for over 150 years before President Harry Truman changed the agency’s name in 1947, merging the Navy and War departments and creating an independent Air Force under a newly titled civilian secretary of defense.

“We had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War,” Trump recently said. “Defense is too defensive. And we want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive too if we have to be.”

Immediate criticisms of the move range from the merely practical and penny-pinching — imagine the expense in changing signage and stationery alone! — to those involving questions of national identity and purpose in the world: “Americans want to prevent wars, not tout them,” Democratic Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey wrote on social media.

The Defense Department and the title of secretary of defense were actually created by an act of Congress in the 1940s, so it’s unclear if the president of the United States can unilaterally change the names back to their former ones. “I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that,” said, adding, “I don’t think we even need that.” Does he?

Whatever its virtues or lack of them, is this proposed name change a serious matter, an important one, or is it instead a way to create a new talking point in the news cycle to take the public eye off other matters? Would a future president and Congress just restore the old name?

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