Talk:United States Department of Defense

The official name is the Department of War, and Wikipedian higher-ups have no authority to override government department names. This is very strange behaviour to observe. Tallard (talk) 14:22, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

It's not an official name change. As the article itself says, In September 2025, Executive Order 14347 authorized the usage of "Department of War" as a secondary name, which is now preferred by the department. "Department of Defense" remains the statutory name. The secretary of defense may institute a new seal with the approval of the president, without Congress's approval. —Eyer (he/him) If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message. 14:25, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Please pardon my error. I've now read that communication. How can I run a line through those sentences? Should I delete it?Tallard (talk) 14:30, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

No need to remove or edit your talk page comment. (It's considered bad form to remove a comment that's already been replied to.) If you wish, though, you can add strikethrough tags around your original comment. This is an example of how to add strikethrough tags: <s>Strikethrough</s>. —Eyer (he/him) If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message. 14:35, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Please note a presidential executive order cannot change the Laws of the United States, including the amendment to the National Security Act of 1947 that renamed the NME to the modern Department of Defense. Ligh&Salv (talk) 18:12, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

True. On September 10, 2025, the House Rules Committee rejected an amendment to rename the Pentagon as part of the larger defense authorization bill. SO it won't happen soon, but no doubt the President will try again if the GOP holds on to the Senate and Congress in the midterms. -- GreenC 02:49, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@GreenC Rename the Pentagon? That's preposterous. Glad they rejected it. Ligh&Salv (talk) 02:53, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Source. I think they mean the Pentagon building would remain the same name, but the Department that occupies the Pentagon would be renamed. -- GreenC 19:52, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@GreenC Oh ok Ligh&Salv (talk) 19:53, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

The term "Pentagon" for the "Department of Defense" is a common figure of speech. Like saying "The White House signed off on the plan", when really it was the President. It's a metonymy, which ironically has a picture of the Pentagon as the example. -- GreenC 20:00, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@GreenC Yeah, I know, an example being Washington for the United States since it is the federal capital district of the United States. Ligh&Salv (talk) 20:06, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

the president can't declare war without Congress either but that's still happens and doesn't mean we shouldn't record that information here in this encyclopedia. all press releases have this, all official communique from the administration. Reading this article one could assume that this is just not happening at all, which doesn't reflect the values of this encyclopedia Shriftkey (talk) 03:19, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

It is completely irrelevant whether official communications from the administration choose to utilize an unofficial name change; we go by what reliable *secondary* sources use which remains overwhelmingly the Department of Defense. We adequately cover the fact that the administration has attempted to push this change, across multiple articles. The "values of this encyclopedia" are not impacted here; and I'd suggest that it would take more than 36 edits in one's edit history to be well situated to meaningfully discuss what those values are. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 16:25, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you PRRfan for bringing this topic

Per your request, I want to adress the spelling issue of the acronym for the Department of Defense.

For example, the official website of the United States government cites "DOD" as an abbreviation of this agency.

Speaking of the recent name change, the current Department of War is referred to as "DOW" on its official "About" page.

In terms of Wikipedia itself, all caps is used here as well creating ambiguity in the letter case of "DOD" and "DOW". Thus, I think we need to follow the same formatting style in order to avoid this mismatch.

Therefore, I ask you to explain the reasoning behind your recent change of "DOD" to "DoD". Are there any accredited sources justifying this edit? Rasptae (talk) 22:58, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Not trying to rgur.. But seem DoW has their official wrbsite: https://www.war.gov/ Simple non combat (talk) 11:25, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

I see. That is exactly what I have mentioned as the second link Rasptae (talk) 20:00, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

now that the appropriate secondary titles have been mentioned could this also be added to the history section when this happened, namely Executive Order 14347, as this was not always the case that this title was used, and the change is a significant shift from the previous title which stood for a long time, originally as a replacement for the revived neo-title? The most recent thing in history section is from 2021, so it should be a line after that Shriftkey (talk) 17:45, 22 March 2026 (UTC)