Mickey Kaus objects to the term Homeland Security. So do I, for all the same reasons. It’s been creeping me out ever since we first created the position (and not just because we put Tom Ridge in charge of it…).

As a solution, he has another suggestion, which is interesting, but has a few loose ends. He wants to call it instead the Department of Defense, and to rename the Department that currently holds that name back to the Department of War.

It would be kind of confusing, especially after all these years, to move a name from one department to another. I’m not sure there’s any precedent for it.

But it also begs all kinds of questions. Would missile defense, which is currently being managed by the Department of Defense, which would become the Department of War, move over to the new Department of Defense? If so, what else would? Would it depend on the nature of the hardware, or where it was deployed? For example, would an anti-aircraft battery based in New York be part of the DoD, but one based in Kabul be managed by the DoW?