So…if we change the name it will mean what exactly? I’m trying to grasp the point of this, er, debate.
Yes…all those things can certainly be construed as ‘defense’. We were helping South Vietnam as part of our stated goal (at the time) of containing communism. This was certainly part of defending (there is that word again) the US. The bombings in Laos and Cambodia were part of the same thing…defending South Vietnam from North Vietnam, containing communism and ultimately defending the US.
Iraq was pretty much the same thing. We invaded to defend the US from the supposed WMD that Iraq possessed, and protect ourselves from their possible future use against us by terrorists (in the unlikely event Saddam were to give his ficticious WMD to terrorist types). More callously we invaded to regime change the Iraqi government, who just happened to be sitting on a rather substantial percentage of the total world oil reserves. This was certainly ‘defense’ of the US both militarily and economically.
The OP seems to be under the misunderstanding that ‘defense’ means we sit around and wait to be attacked then do something. A ‘Defense Department’ is given the task of defending the US. This could entail occationally being aggressive, going on the offensive, etc…both strategically and tactically. Ever heard the old saying ‘the best defense is a good offense’?
At any rate I don’t see that changing things back to the historic name will make much of a difference…or that its even an important question to consider in the greater scheme of things. It is what it is…a rose by any other name still smells like napalm in the morning…
“The Warlord of the Free World”. That title has a nice 1920’s Sci-Fi Ring to it.
Actually as an ex-Navy, moderate Republican, I actually think Sec of Defense does ring false. I wouldn’t call it a **big deal ** but it did sound like spin doctoring to me.
I am 100% in favor of the Afghan war, 50/50 on the Iraq war, Good mission, started poorly and under false pretenses, if done right it would have been a just and worthwhile war, instead it has been done wrong.
I’d like to see some kind of reputable citation that the Navy was upset over working for the Secretary of War. Last I checked, the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force were subordinate to the Secretary of Defense.
The Secretary of the Navy use to be it own Cabinent post reporting directly to the President. Hopefully someone will help me out but when Teddy Roosevelt served as Sec Nav, I believe the Position was considered more important the the Sec of War. Larger Budget also.
This caught, and I started doing some research:
The Sec Navy was a cabinet level Post from Benjamin Stoddert in 1798 under John Adams to James V. Forrestal on September 17, 1947 under Truman.
How do you cite the actual resentment if you read it in History Books?
I guess the question might be turned can you cite that there wasn’t?
Think about how government Bureaucracies work. If the department that had a cabinet post for 150 years was now be bumped out of the cabinet, don’t you think it would be resentful?
Yeah, and what’s with the Department of Health and Human Services? We should call it the Department of Entitlement Spending and Medical Research. And the Department of Commerce really ought to be called the Department of Big Business Promotion. And under this Administration, the Department of Labor should be called the Department of Screwing the Little Guy. And the Executive Office of the President should be called the Agency of Lackies for the Commander in Chimp. Things would be so much better if we just named everything more accurately.
But seriously, anyone who would better understand what the Department of Defense does by renaming it the Department of War is someone you’d have to explain things to using pretty pictures. I mean, does anyone really think that the name “Department of Defense” is fooling anyone? Who, exactly, is being fooled?
As Aeschines argued, just because a stand sells 80% apples and 20% pears shouldn’t make it an “apple” stand: the Department of Defense/War/Hostility would still have important responsibilities in the fields like international humanitarian relief (eg, the 2004 tsunami), domestic disaster relief (eg, NOLA), peacekeeping missions (eg, the Balkans) various scientific projects (eg, DOD’s breast cancer research program), and other tasks that can’t be summarized nicely in any single word. By that measure, “Defense” is just as good as “War,” and since I can’t figure out what difference changing the name would make (other than costing hundreds of millions of dollars to print new letterhead), why should it change?
I can only wonder why the OP didn’t pick one of the two most obviously inaccurately described departments to get riled up about: the Department of State and the Department of the Interior. Where’s the outrage that they are not named the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Parks and Nature?
The Department of State covers Affairs of State, those things that require negotiating, with other organized political communities, who have defined governments, and sovereignty. The states of the union no longer qualify as states by this definition.
According to Eisenhower it should have been called the Secretary of Contracts.
This was when he was working on his “beware the military industrial complex” speech.
“Insurgents” should be ‘Freedom Fighters’ or just ‘Gents’ for short.
“Al Qaeda” should be ‘Defenders From The Infidels’
“Uranium Enrichment” should be ‘Civil Electricity Generation’
