alt Hacker NewsThe "silver dollar" change isn't -- it's the dime. The design was in the works before the current administration [1], and is only intended to be for the 250th anniversary [2].
The Dept of Defense was only created in the late 1940s. Before that the US had the Dept of War, the Dept of the Navy, and other organizations. The point of calling it "defense" was not because "everyone has the right to defense", but because the US was promoting the United Nations and waging a Cold War, and wanted to pretend that it would never do anything proactive or aggressive. That is, it was propaganda, as the current preferred name "Dept of War" is now for a different posture with regard to America's adversaries.
If you're going to call people stupid or immature for making certain decisions, maybe take a couple minutes to find out who made the decisions, and/or what the history of those and similar changes has been.
[1] https://www.ccac.gov/system/files/media/calendar/images/Semi...
[2] https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-programs/semiquincentennia...
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> as the current preferred name "Dept of War" is now for a different posture with regard to America's adversaries.
…which is the bad thing being discussed, yes. I don’t really understand why “there used to be one” would be exonerative. Not to mention, they didn’t rename it, that requires an act of Congress. Instead they just told everyone to change which name they use. Lines up with the “adult children” theory. Skip the actual work, (which would involve addressing the nation and justifying this change in posture), instead focus on the performative.
As we are seeing in real time with Iran, “we’ll just war!” was a juvenile idea, committed to with near-zero forethought or planning.
> The "silver dollar" change isn't -- it's the dime. The design was in the works before the current administration, and is only intended to be for the 250th anniversary
Referring to a dime as a dollar bothered me too. Going deeper, the absence of the olive branch is actually an intentional historical reference to the Revolutionary War, where peace was tragically lost. According to the artist who made it, the open claw is to symbolize the desire to regain it:
The image takes inspiration from the Great Seal of the United States, and represents the colonists before and during the American Revolution, Custer explained. While he included the arrows from the seal, he left out the olive branch to symbolize the fact that the colonies hadn’t yet reached peace — but left the claw open to demonstrate that they were waiting for it.
https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2026/02/philadelphia-mint-c...
> as the current preferred name "Dept of War" is now for a different posture with regard to America's adversaries.
The “Dept of War” naming is not aimed at our adversaries. It’s aimed internally. It’s chest beating from man children who want desperately to identify as “alpha males”.
The same man who calls himself the “president of peace” unilaterally renamed the department of defense. It’s entirely legitimate to call this out as nonsense.
Starting the war with Iran was definitely a pretty stupid decision, even at this point of it. In a couple of years it will look like the beginning of the end for the US hegemony.
Famed spy fiction writer Tom Clancy surely knows the provenance of the name Department of War.
The current preferred name is Department of Defense. Ask anyone who isn’t incompetence aligned.
Just to add, it was in the process of manufacture during Biden, signed into production during Trump. A unfortunately timed nothing burger.
Not to say that War is Peace folks won’t jump on it.
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> the US was promoting the United Nations and waging a Cold War, and wanted to pretend that it would never do anything proactive or aggressive. That is, it was propaganda
Many other countries similarly changed the name of their respective ministries, reflecting the ideal (if not the fact) that war should not be pursued for gain or used to resolve international controversies.
Actions trail behind ideals; ideals are set to remind us of how things should be even if we don't live up to them. Renaming the DoD to DoW reflects an aggressive, violent and ultimately predatory posturing that the West had chosen to abandon after WW2 and many millions of deaths.