Any even casual observer of the American scene should know by now that the President made one of his curious, seemingly weird actions recently. He changed the name of the Dept of Defense to the the Department of War. Or he said he did. Now it turns out he didn’t–not exactly, at least, and not legally? Confused? Well, that’s what retired history instructors are for(well one of them anyway)

I figured early on in this story that it would be a mess and would be misreported on TV by some and dealt with in so little detail by others, that a lot of people would not get the full story. Is it important that they do? Yes, I think so, and particularly in what it says about the President and the peculiarities of his way of thinking–but also because people should understand just how their government has worked and does work. So I decided to think about what I already knew about the subject and to do a little bit of research on line and then to give you what I hope will be the straight truth. Don’t worry, it won’t take long, and once you get the idea it’s clear enough. But we need a little background.

First of all, let’s look at the President’s cabinet, about which we hear a lot and may hear more, regarding the current name issue. The cabinet is established, some say, by the Constitution. But immediately we have our first anomaly. The Constitution never mentions the word “cabinet.” It does(Article II, Section II) assign to the President the right to solicit the opinions of “the principal leaders of each of the executive Departments.” But the “executive departments” are never named. So we have to assume the founders wanted(and therefore assumed) executive departments but didn’t want to organize this matter entirely, or differed on it enough to skip the details. Anyhow, that’s the basis, however vague, for the cabinet. If you delve more deeply into history, particularly legal and constitutional history, I think you might just find a bit more of this vagueness on various issues.

In any event, the Congress of the US created four original departments, State, Treasury, Attorney General and, yes, War. Washington appointed Henry Knox, a much admired Revolutionary War hero as the first Secretary of War. Originally, this Department was responsible for all events of a military nature(let’s not go into “military” and “naval” here). This situation changed in a few years as Britain and France were at war with each other again and both seemed willing to hassle(or worse)American shipping in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and perhaps elsewhere. The naval aspect of things was looking more and more important.

At the behest of President John Adams a new Department, the Department of the Navy, appeared in 1798. So there were now two military cabinet level Departments, the Department of War to run the Army and the Department of the Navy to run–surprise, surprise-the Navy.. This situation of these two Departments lasted for about a century and a half. It ended because of, among other things, the rise of air power.

First important in World War I, air power was immensely important in WW II. A lot of the planes and pilots were part of the Navy then and many still are. But a lot of the aviation necessary was not necessarily Navy related, and so the US Army acquired a new part, the US Army Air Force or USAAF. It was technically part of the Army and subject to Army commands, but nearly constituted a separate service because of its size and importance.

At the end of the war, then, the main US flying corps was part of the army. But it must have seemed to be separate in function and feeling. Possibly there were potential Administrative issues which loomed also. This was likely obvious by the time the war ended in 1945, and two years later Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed, the National Security Act creating the Department of Defense, with its own Secretary who would be a cabinet member.

This meant the Departments of War and the Navy would now be parts of Defense and would be joined by the new Department of the Air Force. The Department of War now became the department of the Army which made sense given the names of the other two departments. All three, again, were now part of the very large Department of Defense. Their secretaries no longer were members of the cabinet, but now held sub-cabinet positions, just one step down from the Secretary of Defense.

So, to review, the Department of Defense encompasses the whole Defense establishment, Army, Navy(which includes the US Marines), and Air Force. It has now been this way for nearly 80 years. What Trump did recently is, very likely legally, inconsequential. Legally, Congress has the right(Article II, Section II) to establish and, presumably, change Department names, so Trump’s action is an overreach. They may change some stationery or some names on doors, but it remains the Department of Defense for official purposes.

I doubt if this will have serious results, but I can see that it might result in embarrassment, irritation, and most of all confusion, for Americans and especially for others trying to figure out just what’s going on here. One thing, for sure, is that Trump’s ever boastful, ever needy personality traits are working overtime. He perhaps thinks this name change is going to be a big deal in impressing potential adversaries with how tough we are. I doubt if it will have the desired effect in many, perhaps any, cases. But it will show us off as being led by a President who likes to sound bellicose and tough, even while dithering over Ukraine and other such issues.

I suspect this may be so because, as already mentioned above, this is relatively meaningless except for getting some new door signs etc. Oh , yes, and Pete Hegseth is now the Secretary of War which may be what he’s wanted al along. I think it is more likely to make us look silly and ineffective abroad, messing with name changes, while our potential enemies (Modi, Putin, XI Jinping, Lukashenko, Kim, etc)plot who knows what? I also question whether, if it ever comes to a court test, Pete’s “new title” will get past the test of the Constitution. It seems doubtful.

It appears to me that Trump has done nothing in recent weeks in foreign policy but blather and bluster and, predictably, be ineffective. We now appear, politically, at least, to be in a much weaker position against our adversaries than we were before the much ballyhooed Alaskan meeting. Nothing good came out of that as far as I see, and nothing good seems likely in the near future. The effect of this whole thing is like much of this Administration–bluster and bragging win out over serious and substantial action.