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Comment by cies | Hacker News Reader

Just curious. "Defense" in this article and in "DoD" is a euphemism for military, isn't it?

I mean: these technologies (and the DoD) are perfectly capable of offense (attack). All while they prefer to call themselves "defense". This is just PR-speak right? A way to look good in the eyes of those who do not understand new speak?

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The DoD was named in 1949, after the end of an awful world war, and there were a lot of moves made to make sure something like that never happened again. Changing the name won't prevent war but maybe it'll remind some people why they show up to work. It's better to name things what they should be, rather than what they are criticized as being at their worst. Don't underestimate nominative determinism.

> It's better to name things what they should be, rather than what they are criticized as being at their worst.

This is known as propaganda. The US has done nothing but go on the offense post-WWII. There was no “defense” in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan… those are all examples of US aggression and imperialism.

There was no "defense" in Korea? There at least was defense of Korea.

Department of other's democracy's defenses, because freedom. Murica.

I think you’re missing my point.

If you don’t think their actions back up their name, would you rather them work towards changing that, or would you rather them change their name?

I’d rather they were completely defunded and by having a name that matches their actions that is more likely to get support. There is a reason the military goes to great lengths to whitewash their actions, they require at least nominal support from the citizens funding them.

I don’t think that would do what you hope it would. Undermining the US military would not result in the US not having a military. It would result in the US having a different military.

> work towards changing that

But if they demonstratably didnt.. Then it's propaganda right?

And if they demonstrably did?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_United_Nations

The US Department of Defense has had that name since 1949. From 1789 to 1947, we (USA) had a Department of War. “Defense” probably qualified as “new speak” at the time, but after nearly 80 years almost everyone understands what it means.

It’s also when we shifted to permanently having a large standing army. The generous reading of those events is that by the end of WWII it was clear that a “great power” wouldn’t have time to re-arm for the next big war, because the pace of war had increased so much and maneuver combined-arms warfare was both very effective and required far more training than older approaches, and “defense” reflects this shift to maintaining a large military apparatus even in peacetime.

Less-generous readings of the events are obvious and common :-)

You’re 76 years late to this party :-)

(That’s when the US Department of War was renamed to the Department of Defense)

It was “National Military Establishment” from 1947-1949.

According to wikipedia, the new organizational structure was created in 1947. In 1949 it was renamed to “Department of Defense”.

(I had just looked this up for my sibling response to parent)

“The best defense is a good offense”

Yes

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