00:00President Donald Trump has rebranded the Defense Department as the Department of War,
00:15a name used when it had more limited responsibilities for U.S. Army forces
00:19rather than the entire military. The Defense Department was established after World War II
00:25by an act of Congress, meaning that Trump likely lacks the authority to unilaterally change its
00:32official name. To avoid that issue, the White House said the President is authorizing the use
00:37of the new label as a secondary title by his administration. Here is a look at key facts
00:44about the history of the departments overseeing the United States military.
00:55According to an official Pentagon history web page, the War Department was established in
01:01August 1789 to oversee the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps. A little less than a decade later,
01:09responsibility for naval forces was transferred to the new Department of the Navy, which also
01:15gained responsibility for the U.S. Marine Corps in 1834. That left the War Department responsible
01:22for the Army and later for the Army Air Corps, the precursor of the Air Force.
01:36The War Department underwent a major reorganization and name change following World War II. The changes
01:43began with the signing of the National Security Act by then-President Harry Truman in July 1947.
01:50The legislation merged the War and Navy Departments as well as the Air Force into the National
01:56Military Establishment, led by a Defense Secretary. The National Security Act was amended in August
02:031949 to change the name of the National Military Establishment to the Department of Defense. It also
02:10removed the Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force from Cabinet positions and made them subordinate
02:16to the Defense Secretary. The U.S. Defense Department is headquartered at the Pentagon,
02:30a massive five-sided building located in Virginia on the Potomac River. Construction of the building
02:36was authorized due to space constraints in the run-up to World War II, with personnel of what was then
02:42known as the War Department split between more than a dozen buildings at the time and the number of
02:48staff expected to grow. Ground was broken on the Pentagon in September 1941 and it officially opened
02:5616 months later in January 1943. The Defense Department is now the largest employer in the United States,
03:04with more than three million military and civilian personnel.
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