The US Department of Defense website has changed its domain name. The previous domain, Defense.gov, now redirects visitors to War.gov, where the website is currently running. This was noted by Strategic Revenue. The change follows US President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War in early September.
Strictly speaking, the rebranding is not official: a change of that sort can only be enacted by Congress. Official documents still use the Department of Defense. However, the move to a new domain does not require such formalities. According to American media, War.gov was registered immediately after Donald Trump’s executive order. Therefore, this is not a pre-planned rebrand, but rather an impromptu one.
The US Department of Defense was known as the Department of War until the end of World War II. However, after that, for the next 80 years, it was called the Department of Defense. Moreover, the US government studiously avoided the word “war” as Department officials, when discussing their missions, preferred to talk about protecting national interests and ensuring security. The move to change the domain name seems all the more drastic: the word “war” appeared for the first time in the US government domain, which had previously carefully avoided names with negative connotations.
