Top Facts About Trump's Department of War AKA Defense Department

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President Donald Trump is rebranding the Defense Department as the Department of War -- a name used when it had more limited responsibilities for US Army forces rather than the entire military. The Defense Department was established after World War II by an act of Congress, meaning that Trump likely lacks the authority to unilaterally change its official name. To avoid that issue, the White House said the president is authorizing the use of the new label as a 'secondary title' by his administration. Here is a look at key facts about the history of the departments overseeing the United States military. WATCH.&nbsp;

Transcript

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 webpage, the War Department was established in August 1789

01:03to oversee the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps. A little less than a decade later, responsibility

01:10for naval forces was transferred to the new Department of the Navy, which also gained

01:15responsibility for the U.S. Marine Corps in 1834. That left the War Department responsible for the

01:22Army, 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.

02:26The U.S. Defense Department is headquartered at the Pentagon, a massive five-sided building located

02:32in Virginia on the Potomac River. Construction of the building was authorized due to space constraints

02:38in the run-up to World War II, with personnel of what was then known as the War Department split

02:44between more than a dozen buildings at the time, and the number of staff expected to grow.

02:50Ground was broken on the Pentagon in September 1941, and it officially opened 16 months later

02:57in 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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