The “Department of War” Is the Most Honest Thing Trump Has Ever Done

Two years later, Congress revised the law, turned the establishment into one Cabinet-level executive department, and renamed it the Department of Defense, worried in part that the acronym sounded too much like “enemy.” (Perhaps they were concerned it was too on the nose.) The new name helped launder what was, in practice, a permanent mobilization for global dominance.

Trump is trying to undo that rhetorical move. In some ways, he’s more honest about the nature of American power than his predecessors. He doesn’t want to clothe empire in the language of humanitarianism. He wants to revel in the bloodlust of the warmonger.

For two decades, U.S. officials have insisted that wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were about fighting terrorism and securing democracy. What they delivered was occupation, torture, black sites, drone warfare, and mass death—all while defense contractors made off with billions of taxpayer boodle. All of this grand scam was managed under the banner of “defense.” By calling it “war,” Trump is at least aligning language with reality.