War Department becomes Defense Department (1947)
The National Security Act of 1947 renamed the War Department as the National Military Establishment, which became the Department of Defense in 1949. The change replaced language built around wartime command with a permanent defense posture suited to peacetime and Cold War confrontation.
The new name signaled a standing military establishment ready for peacetime as well as war, and the department began reorganizing around the new structure.
The term "Department of Defense" became standard, and the name change both reflected and reinforced the shift from wartime mobilization to permanent military readiness.
Shows how renaming a government institution can both signal and drive a policy shift. The 'Super Intelligence' order similarly attempts to use terminology to redirect how the federal government frames a technology.
