President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a prescient and heartfelt speech in Chautauqua, New York, on August 14, 1936, about the tragedy and horrors of war.
Reflecting upon his own experience as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I (1913 to 1920), Roosevelt sincerely stated, “I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping, exhausted men come out of line — the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.“
The context of Roosevelt’s speech occurred six months after Adolf Hitler ordered the Nazi German army to invade the Rhineland on March 7, 1936. The Nazi dictator’s military action was in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which had established the Rhineland as a demilitarized zone to ensure French security. His speech also occurred on the third to the last day of the Berlin Summer Olympics, which abysmally failed in disguising the Nazi’s true racist and militaristic ideology.
I totally agree with his speech because I also hate war. I fear war, and it should be avoided at all cost. I especially hate warmongers and militarists, who have involved the U.S. in such forever wars as Afghanistan and Iraq.
However, I am not a pacifist because it forsakes the innocent and those who cannot defend themselves. This includes the elderly, unborn, children, disabled, civilians, conscientious objectors, and especially the pacifists (e.g., Amish).
I also believe that the best way to prevent war is to prepare for it so that a potential enemy, such as Xi’s Communist China, Putin’s Russia, or any terrorists, will think twice before attacking the U.S.
But how much the U.S. should spend its treasury on the Pentagon every year is a topic for another column. However, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was correct during his farewell address, which was broadcast nationwide on both television and radio, on January 17, 1961, when he paternally and sternly warned our country about the dangers of the “military-industrial complex,” excessive military spending, and forever wars.
I think that the U.S. under President Harry S. Truman made a great mistake in renaming the War Department the DefenseDepartment in 1949 as part of the National Security Act of 1947. I think that his military advisors, generals, and Cabinet gave him poor advice.
I believe that Truman was trying to depict the Soviets as the true aggressors of a new Cold War in 1946, which lasted until 1991, after Stalin had broken both the Yalta and Potsdam agreements. Unlike Stalin, Truman wanted to depict the U.S. as the true conciliatory advocates of an anti-Communist post-World War II military power, who only wanted to engage in peace and defensive just wars.
Hence, the War Department, which Truman regarded as a relic of our two world wars in the 20th century and past five other wars, including the Indian wars in the 19th century, became the euphemistically named Defense Department.
Ironically, the United States has not declared war since December 7, 1941. However, since emphatically inheriting the British Empire in 1945, we have only been engaged in perpetual wars for perpetual peace like ancient Rome.
Since 1945, the U.S. has been directly involved in six major wars without a formal declaration of war: the Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War, Afghanistan War, and indirectly in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Unfortunately, that is not counting our countless military interventions, which “more than 200 of those have been since 1945, and [the] 114 in the post-Cold War era [after 1989].”
And now, the U.S. is stupidly $37.3 trillion in debt, which only benefits the top 5% of our economy and other diverse groups in the form of quarterly or semi-annual interest payments.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the etymology of the monosyllabic word war, when used as a noun, is related to the Middle English word werre, which is ultimately related to the Old High German werra, meaning strife. There is undoubtedly a plethora of strife in war, regardless of the length and weapons used in any armed conflict.
In contrast, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the etymology of the disyllabic word defense, when used as a noun, is related to the Middle English defense (or defence). It was borrowed after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and ultimately from the Medieval and Latin defensa or defensum, meaning vengeance.
Both strife and vengeance are involved in any war, but I prefer strife. However, when I hear the word “war,” it is something that I want to prevent or avoid, and less so with the word defense. The word war also mentally reminds me of such tragic and bloody past wars as the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American War, etc., when diplomacy obviously failed.
The advantage of the word war is that it can be either offensive or defensive without any pretense. Three perfect examples of an offensive war or preemptive attack are the Israeli Six-Day War from June 5 to 10, 1967, the naval attack on the French Vichy fleet at Casablanca on November 11, 1942, and the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Plus, U.S. wars need to be declared by Congress and not the White House, as stipulated in Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 in the Constitution, with few exceptions. Otherwise, we will increasingly become more of an empire and less of a republic in the 21st century.
Another problem with the word defense is that it is too sanitized, unlike the word “war,” which has all the connotations of victory, blood, horror, maiming, mourning, death, and the fact that wars are to be won and neither lost nor end in stalemate. Wars are not meant to be police actions or conflicts ended by establishing a demilitarized zone, such as in Korea in 1953.
Plus, the word war makes me want to avoid it at all costs. That especially includes a nuclear war, which must be prevented by astute and expert diplomacy.
I fully agree with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Trump that the Defense Department should be renamed the War Department.
Trump specifically suggested calling the Defense Department the War Department after the success of our B-2 bombers destroying Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities with fourteen GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs on June 22, 2025, as part of Operation Midnight Hammer.
I agree with Trump. That was an act of war and not defense because Iran has threatened to destroy the U.S. countless times since 1979 with ICBMs armed with nuclear warheads.
Robert L. Maronic
