WAR

 from a NY Times column

By John McWhorter

The Department of War was created by the first Congress to oversee the new nation’s military. The Truman administration changed the name to the Department of Defense in 1949, in the wake of splitting the Air Force off from the Army, and brought the two of them together with the Navy under the same umbrella. Trump asserts that since then, the American military has “never fought to win.” According to our commander in chief (who declined to go to war when he was called!), 

“We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or wokey, and we just fight forever.” Getting back to the old name, the theory goes, will help get us back to the old mission.

I’ll leave it to observers, or anyone merely sentient, to decide whether America’s fighting was “wokey” in Korea and Vietnam. Trump is right, however, that there’s a difference between “war” and “defense.” “War” is active; “defense” is reactive. “War” implies initiating battle; “defense” implies engaging in whatever battle is forced upon you. Given how he consistently deploys language as a tool with which to own his opponents, it’s no surprise that he favors “war.”