Donald Trump sparks WW3 fears over pledge to rename Defence Department

Donald Trump sparked WW3 fears on Monday by revealing he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are plotting to resurrect the "Department of War" title - scrapped nearly eight decades ago.

The explosive announcement came as Trump sat alongside South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the Oval Office, where a routine question about military deployment in Washington D.C. sparked an extraordinary tirade about the Pentagon's identity crisis, reports The Independent.

Trump gushed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been "incredible with the, as I call it, the Department of War" - harking back to what the massive military machine was branded until 1947, before President Truman's sweeping defence reforms.

"You know, we call it the Department of Defense, but between us, I think we're going to change the name. You want to know the truth. I think we're going to have some information on that may be soon," Trump declared.

The controversial proposal hinges on America's glorious wartime legacy, with Trump invoking the nation's triumphant World War victories as justification for the radical rebrand.

"I think because, you know, Department of Defense, we won World War I, World War II, it was called the Department of War. And to me, that's really what it is. Its defense is a part of that. But I have a feeling we're going to be changing," Trump insisted.

"Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War, then we changed it to Department of Defense."

Trump teased that bombshell developments on the contentious issue would emerge "over the next couple weeks."

The firebrand president has repeatedly floated dubbing Hegseth as "Secretary of War," suggesting the original name change reeked of political correctness and American weakness.

However, the historic transformation actually stemmed from practical post-war restructuring rather than ideological concerns.

The sweeping changes unfolded just years after World War II ended, when Harry Truman signed the groundbreaking National Security Act of 1947 that July.

The revolutionary legislation transformed the old Department of War into the Department of the Army, bundling it with the Navy Department and the brand-new Air Force Department under the freshly-minted National Military Establishment, commanded by America's first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal.