Media Release: The Department of Defense wasn’t “Woke” . . . It was an agent of intervention and repression

*For Immediate Release*

The Department of Defense wasn’t “Woke” . . . It was an agent of intervention and repression

Available for Interviews…

Robert Buzzanco, emeritus professor of history, co-host of Green & Red Podcast, award-winning historian, author of many books and articles on the American military and U.S. foreign and economic.

Contact him at buzzanco@yahoo.com, or  713.269.1508 [Text]

Donald Trump has changed the name of the Department of Defense [the Pentagon] to the Department of War, claiming that the Pentagon was “woke.” He then added that the U.S. military had “never fought to win” since World War II.  Both statements are wholly incorrect.

In truth the change from the “Department of War” to “Department of Defense” in the 1947 National Security Act was a signal that the U.S. was militarily and economically expanding its power globally and creating a tightened security state at home.  Harry S. Truman was not attempting to be woke.

The creation of the Pentagon was the core piece of a reorganization of national security based on the idea that, in an era of atomic bombs and jet aircraft, nations had to be ever ready for war and prepared to mobilize resources in an instant, thereby linking civilian and military institutions to produce for, finance, and fight wars.  As Admiral Ernest J. King explained, “wars are no longer fought solely by the armed forces.  Directly or indirectly, the whole citizenry and the entire resources of the nation go to war.”

“War” was too limiting.  “Defense” included not just the expansion of the armed forces, but far greater military budgets, a system of alliances like NATO and the OAS, a proliferation of bases overseas, proxies abroad, military training, civil defense and preparation for atomic warfare, and the emergence of the “national security state” at home—with red scares, surveillance, attacks on civil liberties, and a focus away from democracy and liberty to “defense” vastly defined.

Trump’s contention that the military has never fought to win since 1945 is equally preposterous as U.S. armed forces—on every continent, via wars and interventions and staged coups d’etat and sanctions and boycotts and immense transfers of weapons and aid to allies has shown in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, the Middle East and multiple regions elsewhere.

See also, “Trump Says U.S. Military Has ‘Never Fought to Win’ Since World War II,” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/us/politics/trump-military-wars.html?smid=url-share

Green and Red Podcast #418: “The Defense Department Isn’t Woke, It’s a Blueprint for Empire and Repression,” https://greenandredpodcast.org/2025/09/10/the-defense-department-isnt-woke-its-a-blueprint-for-empire-and-repression/

###