It's a fairly recent development. It was created as the department of war by Washington and remained that until 1947 where it split into the departments of the air force and army, joining the already existing department of the navy, which together made up the national military establishment (NME), which was renamed 2 years later to the DOD.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
359 points (95.7% liked)
Showerthoughts
36351 readers
1055 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Oddly enough, this also coincides with the time when the US military was more explicitly about offence rather than defense. After the Revolution, people mistrusted the federal government having a large standing army. The army was raised up in time of war, and everyone went home when it was over.
Post-WW2 was the first time the US kept a large army in "peace". Been that way ever since.
defense
offence
Make up your mind!
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
- Military-industrial complex
- War machine
- Merchants of death
There are many names.
A way of keeping people employed usefully in many highly skilled jobs so you don't need to give them social security payouts for being jobless. In this way it is a truly excellent idea.
The problem is that it happens at the expense of other jobs, and the lack of transparency makes corruption way too easy.
"The Ministry of Peace"
-Orwell
funny how the israeli military is called a "defense force". haven't been doing much defending.
I have been calling them the genocide force for the past year
Diaper force
But when you're Hamas, defending your country from invaders: terrorists!
Old joke from when I was in engineering college.
What's the difference between a electrical engineer and a civil engineer?
One builds the bombs one builds the targets.
The US used to have the Department of War. Then it split up after WWII into the departments of the army, navy, air force and the overseeing department was renamed the department of defense. Probably a branding thing.
edit: a word
You're talking about the same industry that coined the term "preemptive strike" instead of calling it what it is: starting a war.
"I didn't shoot a baby, I neutralized a threat!" - the IDF
I’ve always heard to it referred to as the “military industrial complex”. Eisenhower tried to warn us about it in the 1950s.
They also cause Famines, Plagues, and Pestilence. They have whole departments devoted to nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
They're not a one trick pony.
pollution/conquest, death, famine, pestilence.
It was the department of war but the government decided that that name was too honest, makes the corpos look bad too
For countries like Finland, the Ministry of Defense is not about offense, and is very heavily armed.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Yeah ... no.
Ask Europeans if they feel working in that industry right now feels like anything but for defensive reasons.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Protecting your own country doesn't always involve actively declaring war with everyone. Often it's economic or cyber infrastructure hardening related
Gentlemen! There will be no fighting in the War Room!
The attack industry
You just realized that?
No
Then it's not really on topic...
WWII was the war to end all wars, so we couldn't have a department of war anymore. Still "needed" and army , navy, marines and all the weapons for them though so we created the department of defense.
BS, it was a result of Bernays and his propaganda (which he also renamed 'public relations')
Soon to be the "Ministry of Peace".
Well I mean yeah. "Defense" just sounds better on TV.
view more: next ›