Department of Offense?

When President Bush created a new Cabinet post and Department in 2003 called “Homeland Security,” I wondered about the overlap with the Department of Defense. Not that Homeland Security and Defense do the same thing so much, but rather the name implication. Defense exists to defend our country. But Homeland Security is supposed to secure our homeland? What is the difference? By creating a department of Homeland Security, are we not saying that the department of Defense is actually a department of Offense?

But let’s take a look at a history of the presidential cabinet. How did these jobs evolve?

Washington’s cabinet was pretty small; but then so was the federal government, and especially the executive branch. He had 4 cabinet members: State (diplomacy), Treasury (money), Attorney General (top prosecutor) and War. The first three departments of the executive branch have existed ever since.

The next department was added quickly; under John Adams the second president, the Secretary of the Navy was added. (So was the Navy not involved in war?)

During the 1800’s not very many cabinet posts were created. Postmaster General, Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture were the only ones. And in the first half of the 20th century I was surprised to see that despite the growing Presidential power, there were not that many more.

But in 1947 the Departments of War and Navy were incorporated under a new organization; the Department of Defense. Now there are so many reasons that these departments needed to be reorganized. We now had an Air Force and the Marines. The business of keeping the country safe was very different from the job of Henry Knox, Washington’s first Secretary of War.

But why not call it all the Department of War? Well we now regularly had an army, not just during times of war. The jobs of officers and enlisted men in all the branches of the service were not just about making war. But the Secretary of War under Lincoln was in charge of the soldiers that were stationed in the South after the Civil War. They weren’t making war, they were making sure the states of the former Confederacy were following the laws sent down by Congress. So perhaps the department of War has never been completely accurate.

And the new name of “Defense” had to be very political as well. We had just finished the Second World War, which the American public (in general) did not want to get involved in. Calling our soldiers “defenders” instead of “warriors” lends itself to our reactionary isolationism that we get into in this country.

But it is also not true, as the creation of the Department of Homeland Security points out. If the Pentagon were only in the job of defending the United States, their behavior would be very different.

So what should we call these two departments to accurately reflect the jobs that the executive branch is carrying out?

My suggestion about the true nature of the Pentagon in the title is actual facetious (at least I hope so). But I do think that we need to reexamine the mandate given to them.

And maybe a name isn’t very important. We all know what these departments do, right?

Well I hope so.