Department of Defense to return on behalf of the Ministry of Historical War

First on Fox: President Donald Trump will sign a decree on Friday to modify the name of the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of War, returning to the former namesake of the agency, Fox News Digital learned.

Trump and defense secretary Pete Hegseth recently said they wanted to change the name of the agency. This is one of the many initiatives that the Trump administration has led as part of its “Warrior Ethos” campaign within the Pentagon.

A White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital Thursday that Trump would deploy the name change on Friday. The decree calls for using the Ministry of War as a secondary title for the Ministry of Defense, as well as sentences like “Secretary of War” for HegSeth, according to an information sheet from the White House.

The ordinance also orders HegSeth to propose legislative and executive actions to take the name of the American war department permanently.

Trump announces that he “restores” the names of several bases changed under Biden

The order of September 5, 2025, the order will also ask the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to propose legislative and executive actions to make the name of name permanent. (Getty Images)

Likewise, the implementation of the order will require changes to websites for the public and office signaling to the Pentagon, in particular rename it from the information room on public affairs “the annex of the Pentagon war”, according to a White House official. Other longer -term projects are also underway, said the manager.

Trump reported in recent days, the change was imminent.

“Everyone likes us to have an incredible story of victory when it was the Ministry of War,” Trump told journalists on August 25. “Then we changed it at the Ministry of Defense.”

Hegseth, whom Trump has already called on occasion as the “war secretary”, also expressed similar feelings and said that the change would reflect a broader cultural change within the Pentagon.

Plan of Progress of the White House for the Ministry of War while Trump seeks to restore the historical military title

President Donald Trump, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on the left, and the defense secretary Pete Hegseth, on the right, is expressed during a meeting of the cabinet in the White House cabinet in Washington on August 26, 2025. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)

“We won the First World War, and we won the Second World War, not with the Ministry of Defense, but with a War Department, with the Ministry of War,” Hegseth said in an interview Wednesday with “Fox & Friends”. “As the president said, we are not only defense, we are offended.

“We have restored warriors in the department. We want warriors, people who understand how to demand lethality on the enemy,” he said. “We do not want endless contingencies and simply playing defense. We think that words, names and titles count. So we work with the White House and the President on this subject.”

The United States has employed the title of the Ministry of War for its military agency until 1949, when it was renamed from the Ministry of Defense in accordance with a series of massive reforms included in the 1947 national security law.

Hegseth promises to restore the mentality of warriors and increase the standards of military transformation sweeping

The executive decree modifying the name of the Ministry of War will be the 200th order that Trump signed during his second term. (Reuters)

It is not clear if the congress, which has the power to establish federal executive services, will have to intervene to issue the final approval in moving. However, Trump previously expressed his confidence that he did not need to approve the legislators and that they will get on board if necessary.

“We are just going to do it,” Trump told journalists on August 25. “I’m sure the congress goes if we need it. I don’t think we even need it.”

The executive decree modifying the name of the Ministry of Defense will be the 200th order that Trump signed during his second term.

Fox News Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.