Defense was always just a euphemism for War. That’s not the signal you think it is.

throw0101d 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> Defense was always just a euphemism for War. That’s not the signal you think it is.

No, it was not. Tom Nichols, professor emiritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College:

> It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.”

> These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks[1] when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.

> In 1949, after two years that included a massive reorganization of the U.S. military (and the establishment of an air force), Truman christened the new United States Department of Defense, which consolidated elements of the previous War and Navy Departments. That name was good enough for Truman, who served in combat in World War I and dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. And it was good enough for President Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander, who oversaw the largest military operations ever undertaken in all of human history.

* https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive...

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charlesabarnes an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why isn't it? The change was clearly made to indicate the posture of the department. Either to US citizens or to powers abroad. Even though its "just" words it indicates intent.

	▲	SllX 28 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It was originally entitled “Department of War” and was changed after World War II for better PR. Whether it is called “Department of War” or “Department of Defense”, it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget. Personally, I view “Department of War” as more honest, because War has always been its business.
	▲	shimman 29 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Because the US has mostly been an imperial force of evil among the world, not a net benefit outsides of the elites that benefit from the deliberate colonialism + death. War Is a Racket is almost a 100 years old and it's about one man's feelings towards his manipulation in the banana wars [1] + middle east interventions. You can go back every century and see what damage colonialism has done both abroad and at home. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars

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afavour an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If they have identical meanings then why’d they change it?

	▲	SllX 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I answered this in a sibling comment to yours.

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32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

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