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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. As we discussed in the last segment, President Trump has renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War. On its face, it may sound like just semantics, but what is the signal about how his administration wants to wield American power and how the world sees us? What does his MAGA base think about this, since they elected him in part to get us out of wars?

Fred Kaplan, longtime Slate columnist on war and diplomacy and the author of many nonfiction books and now a novel, by the way. His novel is called A Capital Calamity. Fred argues that this move, renaming it to the Department of War, is both historically misguided and politically dangerous. The symbolism isn't the only story here. Last week, Trump ordered a US Special Forces strike on a Venezuelan boat in international waters, killing all 11 people on board. Trump says they were smuggling drugs into the United States, but has offered no evidence.

Typically, drug interdiction is a Coast Guard mission since it's the only branch of the armed forces with law enforcement authority at sea. Using special forces for such an operation is unusual and some say legally dubious. What do these moves reveal about the president's worldview, about the militarization of US policy, about the blurred line between performance and power? Perhaps we'll ask Fred Kaplan, who joins us now. Hi, Fred. Always glad to have you on the show.

Listeners, any reaction to President Trump renaming the Defense Department the Department of War? Does the language matter? Any comments or questions on the decision to attack that Venezuelan boat? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Fred, you're there? Do we have you? Oh, I think we don't have him yet. While we're hooking up his line, he wrote that renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War is purely performative. I wonder if it's something more than that. Listeners, does this trouble you? It was the Department of War for much of the country's history until after World War II.

It shows a different relationship with the military, I think, even if it is just performative, when you say that you have a military to defend yourself, the Department of Defense, as opposed to when you have a military to go to war, to wage war, doesn't it send a different message to the rest of the world? Maybe people who are listening right now who are originally nationals from any other country have a take on this, on how you think it might be perceived where you originally came from. 212-433-WNYC or anyone else. Call or text, 212-433-9692. Now we have Fred Kaplan. Hi, Fred.

Fred Kaplan: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Purely performative. I don't know if you heard while we were hooking you up just now, my wondering if it is just purely performative or if it's performative in a way that positions the United States as not just trying to defend itself, Department of Defense, but in intending to wage war, Department of War. Maybe it's more than just performative, but what do you think?

Fred Kaplan: I think it's both. This has not been studied. This is another one of these Trump decisions that he says something, just blurts it out, and then puts it in motion without any NSC meetings or congressional hearings or anything. The Department of Defense was named such in 1949 by the Congress. This, to become official, it has to be congressional. In fact, he's even acknowledged that, or the official documentation has. I meant it in this sense. On the one hand, look, on a fundamental level, it's just silly.

You have Hegseth. I said the only thing that's going to change is the cleft of his jaw as he walks down the Pentagon. He instantly has somebody film defense being chiseled away from the Pentagon's official logo and replaced with war, and a new sign put up in his office, 'Secretary of War'. Trump, even he-- He says, "We won World War I, World War II, and then we changed it to Department of Defense, and we keep losing wars. We need to win wars again. We became woke after World War II."

I can't believe that even Donald Trump seriously believes that Harry Truman was woke. Dwight Eisenhower, retired five-star general, commander of European forces in World War II, was woke. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, there's a lot you can say about them, but woke is not among them. It might be that we just got involved in the wrong kinds of wars after World War II. What you're saying, it's certainly true as well. One reason why they named it-- there are a few reasons why the Department of War became the Department of Defense after World War II.

One, millions and millions of people had died in World War II. If there was going to be another war, it was thought in 1947, it would be a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Why would you want to-- It was a good piece of image Building to call it the Department of Defense. We are defending ourselves. We are defending Western Europe. Brian, right now, I looked into this. I'm pretty sure this is true. There is not a single other country on earth that has a department or a Ministry of War. The last ones were Portugal and Brazil, and they changed it to defense after their dictatorships were overthrown.

Now, you could say, as the Washington Post editorial page surprisingly did the other day, that this is good. We're getting rid of the euphemisms about defense and security. I don't know. I don't consider those terms euphemism. You're right, it makes-- To the rest of the world, it looks like, especially with Hegseth's Department of Defense-- Department of War. He-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: He talks about that phrase "warrior ethos". Right?

Fred Kaplan: Yes. Well--

Brian Lehrer: Lethality. Maybe they should be-- With what you've been saying about Hegseth and his influence on Trump and considering some of the changes in leadership at the Pentagon, and if you're seeing it as performative, I guess in a way you're saying they should just call it the Department of White Male Machismo with demoting women and people of color who are in leadership positions and saying, "Woke, woke, woke."

Fred Kaplan: I think it is a euphemism for that. Look, there has been an argument about the need to reinstill a "warrior ethos". There might be too much bureaucratization, maybe a little too much legalism. Remember, Hegseth came to Trump's attention when he was still at Fox News by defending three officers who were on trial for committing war crimes in Afghanistan. These were serious war crimes. Several of the men in their companies were testifying against them for how to-- Trump pardoned them. Trump pardoned them. According to Hegseth--

Brian Lehrer: It wasn't like the US Military was acting with so much restraint or so little effectiveness on the actual battlefield.

Fred Kaplan: Yes. To Hegseth's mind, fighting a war and the idea of laws of war is an oxymoron. He thinks there should be no laws of war. There should be no restraints on the behavior of armed forces, even in an urban environment, in warfare. Yes, if we want to go back to that, the pre-- Any international law, law of war, these-- John McCain, who, as you remember, was locked up and tortured in a North Vietnamese prison for seven years. He was the biggest critic of torture and of illegal behavior in wars saying, "Look, this is one way that we keep our own standing at bay is not to behave like these criminals."

Brian Lehrer: [unintelligible 00:09:11]

Fred Kaplan: The rest of the world thinks that we're just war-happy goons who don't care, A, about our image in the world, about what happens to civilians near a battlefield. This doesn't make anybody quiver in their boots. This doesn't build up respect for us or the armed forces. In fact, I know, I've talked with some people that there's a tremendous amount of demoralization going on among our own military right now because of this thing.

Brian Lehrer: A few snarky posts coming in. One person writes, "Department of Bone Spurs." Another one says, "I'm in favor of renaming the Department of Defense as the Amazing Department of War." Another one--

Fred Kaplan: Be careful with that. It might happen.

Brian Lehrer: Another one says, "Why take half measures? Why don't we just call it the Department of Death? "Now, I think Steve in Manhattan may be calling as not a Trump supporter or a supporter of the military, but to support this name for another reason. Steve, you'll tell me if my theory about your call is correct. Hi, you're on WNYC.

Steve: Hey, thanks for taking the call. Yes. You just mentioned the Washington Post editorial. I had not heard about that, so I imagine I might be repeating some of the points that were made there. Yes, I think this administration's an unmitigated disaster, with each pronouncement more idiotic than the last. This is being done for the wrong reasons, false machismo, et cetera. Again, maybe I'm repeating the Post here, but wasn't the original name change to Department of Defense a bit of Orwellian doublespeak to distract from or disguise the nature of the Department in that we had been, or have been a country that often inserts ourselves in foreign affairs regardless of whether or not there's actually any threat.

Whether it's the Philippines or Hawaii or whatever you want to use as an example, maybe it is better we call it what it is. If we do that, maybe our politicians and the voters who vote for them might hesitate to spend so much of our money on a machine that we've seen-- that maybe it's better we see it framed not as an institute for defense, but for a department that's engaging in these activities.

Brian Lehrer: Steve, thank you. Got you. That's an interesting political theory anyway, that if it is called the Department of War, it may be harder to get Congress to go along with authorizing some of these actions that are controversial. Iraq comes to mind. Of course, nobody said that wasn't going to be a war, that one. I don't know, maybe it's that much more stark for the public at large, and whether they support their members of Congress supporting whatever it is that may come down the pike in the future.

Fred Kaplan: The history of it is this. George Washington set up the Department of War in 1789, and at the time, war-- it was basically the army. In 1798, the Navy declared itself a separate department. For all the years since then, up to World War II, the Department of Navy was separate from the Department of War, the army. Then, after World War II, in 1947, the Department of Air Force seceded from the Army. It used to be Army Air Forces. Then in 1949, when Harry Truman wanted to consolidate all the services into one branch of government, he didn't want to call it the Department of War because that was what the army was. He called it the Department of Defense.

As I said, given what people thought the nature of war would be right after World War II, which would be a nuclear war, it made sense, too. Now, it is true. Yes. As the Post said, maybe we should just be honest about this. In fact, there's a very interesting history about the Office of Secretary of Defense and the creation of it, the first three years, 1947-'50. One thing that was explicitly stated in the National Security Act, which was in 1947, which created the Secretary of Defense, even before there was a Department of Defense, was that it was a recognition that the military had to be integrated into other aspects of-- Was integrated, as a matter of fact, into economics, into intelligence, technology.

In other words, that a Secretary of Defense and a unified Department of Defense had to engage in something beyond war, that national security meant something besides fighting wars. Look, Donald Trump says that he's a man of peace. He's lobbied the foreign ministers to nominate him to win a Nobel Prize, and he bombs nuclear sites in Iran and says, "Oh, but I'm not declaring war on Iran." He resumes weapons to Ukraine, and say, "Oh, but we're not involved in this war. We're not fighting a war."

On the one hand-- Talk about mixed messages. On the one hand, he's saying, "I'm a man of peace." The only thing that he's called a war is wars on criminals in Chicago and Washington, D.C., and south of the border. He doesn't want to get into war any place else. I think he really doesn't. This is just-- it's strutting, it's jaw clenching, it's clefting. That's what I meant by it's purely performative. It doesn't even have any real translation to what's going on. To the extent it does translate, it just makes the rest of the world think that we're irresponsible war criminals.

Brian Lehrer: Listener texts, "He wants the Nobel Peace Prize, and he's made no bones about that." He's campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, and he said if he can bring peace to Russia, Ukraine, to Israel, Gaza, of course, those efforts aren't going very well. He lists a number of other conflicts that maybe he did more successfully intervene on that are less known in the United States, less known around the world, except in their regions. I think he actually thinks he might qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize. If you rename your military war, then maybe it's harder to get a prize that calls itself peace.

Fred Kaplan: Yes. Also, some of those other wars, like India, Pakistan, were overstated. In fact, one reason for the big split between Trump and Modi, the prime minister of India, is that Trump was on the phone call with him and was urging him to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize because of all he did to end conflict between India and Pakistan. Modi said, "What? You had nothing to do with that? That had nothing to do with you?"

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Didn't know that.

Fred Kaplan: At which point, Trump imposes 50% tariffs on India. There was a huge story about this in the New York Times, the tariffs were-

Brian Lehrer: For buying oil from Russia, right?

Fred Kaplan: -propelled by this downfall.

Brian Lehrer: Wasn't that supposedly for buying energy from Russia?

Fred Kaplan: It was that, too, but at least according to this very long and in-depth story in the Times that it was really instigated most of all by Modi's refusal to acknowledge that Trump had ended conflict between India and Pakistan.

Brian Lehrer: The personal presidency. Fred, you were scheduled until now, but are you free till the top of the hour? Because if you are--

Fred Kaplan: Yes, sure.

Brian Lehrer: Great. We'll take a break, and we'll pivot, and we'll talk for the rest of the time about this attack by the US Military on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela and what new era that might start. Stay with us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Fred Kaplan from Slate.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue with Slate's war story-- You call your column War Stories, not Defense Stories?

Fred Kaplan: I didn't invent that title, but yes, I basically do write about wars, but I write about other things, too. Good point, good point.

Brian Lehrer: War and diplomacy. [crosstalk] [unintelligible 00:18:04]

Fred Kaplan: [unintelligible 00:18:04] to change the name to Defense Stories.

Brian Lehrer: Oh-oh, now we've caused trouble in the workplace. Yes. Fred writes a lot about diplomacy, a lot about all kinds of international affairs. He's the author of many nonfiction books, including two about nuclear war. He recently became a novelist with his book A Capital Calamity. We're talking about a couple of things in the news. The name change to Department of War and the attack on a boat in Venezuela. Let me just get a couple of callers in here who want to say the Department of War name change is more troubling than just performative. Lisa in Rockland County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi. Good morning, still. I just wanted to say that all of this historical research about the switch from these names is very fascinating. If you fly up above it all and you look at the big picture, what I think is that the administration is grooming the American people. You have charismatic cult leaders, sex traffickers, offenders. They groom their victims so that they can start to feel that a certain way of thinking or being treated is normal. That's all the time in the Catholic Church with sexual abuse, et cetera.

We're being groomed to normalize this idea that we have the Department of War because then it'll be much more normal for Trump to be able to bring troops into these different cities. Over the past next few years, it will be normalized. This idea of he's positioning us all, we're being groomed and positioned to make it a normal narrative that by the time the next vote comes around, who knows what will happen. This is, I think, really the big picture plan.

The benefit, of course, is for him to widen his base by bringing like this guy in from Staten Island who mentioned how he's not for Trump, for the administration, and yet he just thinks that there's going to be a lot less crime if you get these guys on the street, these scary terrorist looking guys, and it's becoming more normal.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, thank you very much. One more. Susan in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Susan: Hi. Thanks. I completely agree with the person who just spoke. I think this is much more than performative because look what's going on with the National Guard. Look what's going on with the Venezuela boat. By the way, I don't think that Mr. Hegseth has the right to change the name on a public building that's owned by the taxpayers, not by him personally. Finally, I'd like to say that I predict that lethality will become the most used word in the New York Times crossword in the next year.

Brian Lehrer: Susan, thank you.

Susan: That's all.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. All right, Fred, Venezuela, the Venezuelan boat incident. Trump ordered US Special Forces, not the Coast Guard, to fire on the vessel, killing everyone on board. We already said a little bit of what's unusual about it, because it's the Coast Guard that enforces-- is supposed to do drug interdiction. What's legally questionable about this, as you see it?

Fred Kaplan: Legally, I've talked with a few people about this. It's not even questionable. I can't find anybody who believes that he had any legal authority to do this. We shouldn't-- When you use the phrase legal authority, this shouldn't be interpreted to mean some nice legalism. It has to do with who has the power and right to go to war under what circumstances. It should be noted, first of all, it hasn't even been proven. No evidence has been cited to show that this really was a boat carrying drugs or carrying drugs to the United States. Frankly, I'm a bit suspicious because I think if there were evidence to that effect, communications intercepts or whatever, we would have seen it by now.

Brian Lehrer: Why else would they have done it?

Fred Kaplan: Maybe they genuinely thought that it was drugs. Mistakes are made with these kinds of things. Second, and this is the more crucial and enduring point, is that-- Let's say that somebody was in a car and the police force had information that they were about to go rob a bank or they were about to go sell drugs on the corner of 110th and Amsterdam Avenue or something, the police do not have a right to therefore blow up the car that's carrying the drug dealers. There are procedures for this. Same thing in international laws. That's why we have a Coast Guard.

There have been many instances when the Coast Guard has intercepted vessels believed to be carrying contraband of various sorts, and they got the job done. Unless they're fired on--

Brian Lehrer: Then what do they do? Let's say that-

Fred Kaplan: They board the boat, they say--

Brian Lehrer: -this boat was carrying a lot of fentanyl into the United States or toward the United States, and we know that that is a real crisis in the United States, the opioid crisis, and that some significant amount of it does come from Latin America, and Americans are going to die.

Fred Kaplan: Yes. What happens?

Brian Lehrer: What's legitimate here?

Fred Kaplan: Yes, what's legitimate and what, in fact, has happened in many occasions, the Coast Guard pulls up and says, "Attention, attention. Pull over. This is the Coast Guard. We're going to board your boat." They board the boat, and they confiscate bad stuff and they arrest bad people. If the bad people first fire on the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard has the right to fire back. There has been no claim that anything of the sort happened in this instance. It's not just that it's improper legally. It's really against our own national security.

I mean, already, because of tariffs and many other things, we have countries, including longtime allies, saying, "Oh, geez, we can't really deal with the United States anymore. They're not a reliable guarantor of our security. They're throwing all these tariffs up against our trade for no good reason, as far as we can tell. We have to find new supply. We have to find a new chain of supplies for both imports and exports. We have to find new guarantors of our security, or to build up our own defense forces." In some cases, France, Germany, South Korea, they're talking about building up their own nuclear arsenals.

United States is becoming-- Now, again, some people might think this is good. United States is becoming much less of a superpower. We are losing-- Superpower is not only a country that has a lot of power, but some rationale, some basis for exerting that power or claiming that power. In terms of the Soviet Union, it was oppression of Eastern Europe. In terms of the United States, there was some oppression as well, but it was also having certain ideals, at least stating them, and not just what these guys, what Trump and Hegseth are doing.

I guess you could make the point. Yes, they're not hypocritical, but they are saying, we don't care about international law. We don't care about diplomatic traditions. We don't care about alliances. We're going our own way. We're doing our own thing, whatever we want, under whatever circumstances we want. This might make you feel good, might make someone like Pete Hegseth feel good in the morning, but a few years from now, we're going to wake up and say, "Oh geez, nobody's on our side anymore. Nobody's coming to support us."

Brian Lehrer: Trump and Hegseth called the victims on this boat terrorists. How does that label function? Usually, I think the word terrorist or terrorism is applied to an act of violence intended to create a political effect.

Fred Kaplan: Right. Also, there's some [unintelligible 00:27:06]

Brian Lehrer: Smuggling drugs into the United States, though it may be horrible and potentially deadly, it's not that.

Fred Kaplan: That's right. For example, if we're fighting the Taliban or Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Mali or anyplace else, and our forces see somebody who they believe is affiliated with those groups legally, they can fire on them because they're terrorists. There is no war having been declared against Venezuela if, in fact, they were the suppliers of these drugs, or even there's nothing in law or practice or anything else that equates drug smugglers, if that's who these people were, to Al Qaeda, or that which is what instigated the law that allowed you to fire on terrorists. No, this is a post hoc and possibly completely made-up rationale providing the veneer of legal justification for what they did.

Brian Lehrer: One listener posts that there's been talk that the attack on the boat was AI-generated. Have you heard anything like that?

Fred Kaplan: No, and I don't think AI has advanced that far within Southern Command.

Brian Lehrer: Let me get one more voice on here from John, who says he grew up in the UK, and I think he's going to sound like it with at least a foot in one other country for that much of an international perspective on some of this. John, you're on WNYC from Sussex County. Hi.

John: Hi, Brian. It's good to be on. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, I think I want to give a-- if you like, an outsider's perspective of the title, especially of the Department of War rather than Department of Defense. I think it's to do also-- I think the way it hits is different between populations because in the UK, my mother was in London during the bombing and my father was in the jungles of [unintelligible 00:29:20] and places like that.

The memory that was passed down to us was very, very raw about the war. When you become the Department of War or the Ministry of War, it really resonates a lot worse. I think the US public have been so remote from the actual effects of war. The military hasn't-- through both world wars, they've really stepped up, but maybe the homeland is [inaudible 00:29:46].

Brian Lehrer: We have the advantage of having oceans between us, and--

Fred Kaplan: That's a good point, [unintelligible 00:29:50].

Brian Lehrer: John, what do they call it in the UK?

John: It's the Ministry of Defense.

Brian Lehrer: Ministry of Defense.

Fred Kaplan: [unintelligible 00:29:58]

Brian Lehrer: Fred, like just about every other country, as I understand it. Fred, we have 20 seconds left.

Fred Kaplan: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Fred.

Fred Kaplan: Yes, okay, I hear you now.

Brian Lehrer: I was just saying, I think you point out and you've pointed out that almost every other country calls it Ministry of Defense now, not Ministry of War, we have 10 seconds.

Fred Kaplan: Or something like that. Korea and China call themselves the People's Liberation Army or the Korean People's Army, but yes, there is no other country that uses the word war.

Brian Lehrer: Fred Kaplan writes the War Stories column on Slate and is author of the novel A Capital Calamity. Thanks, Fred. Stay tuned for Alison, everybody.

Fred Kaplan: Take care. Thank you.

 

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