The first hint came in March. Donald Trump published an item to his social media platform that referred in passing to the Pentagon as “the Department of War.” A few months later, the president reiterated his interest in the name-change and even referred to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth as the “secretary of war.”

Trump added at the time, “[I]t used to be ‘secretary of war’; then we became politically correct.” (Kevin Kruse, a historian at Princeton University, sarcastically replied, “Yeah, when historians discuss the National Security Act of 1947, we absolutely stress how the centralization of American military power under the new Department of Defense at the dawn of the Cold War was all about being ‘politically correct.’”)

This week, the president started leaning into the idea.

On Monday morning, the Republican told reporters that he and his team are “gonna change the name” of the Defense Department. Soon after, he brought it up again at a different White House event.

“Why are we ‘Defense’? So it used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound,” he said, pining for days in which “we used to win wars all the time.” The president added, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense, too.”

If this weren’t quite enough, as Monday neared its end, Trump appeared at a third White House event where a reporter reminded him that it would require an act of Congress to rename a Cabinet agency.

“We’re just gonna do it,” the president responded, in keeping with his general attitude of treating Congress like a doormat. “I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that. I don’t think we even need that.”

As NBC News reported, “The War Department was initially established by George Washington. In 1947, President Harry Truman signed a law that reorganized war-related departments into the National Military Establishment, which was renamed to the Department of Defense two years later.”

The incumbent president apparently likes the idea of rolling back the clock.

Stepping back, what we’re dealing with is a president eager to move in two competing directions. On one hand, he’s obviously desperate to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. On the other hand, Trump has also destabilized international alliances and institutions, announced plans to acquire countries that don’t appear to have any interest in joining the United States, launched a preemptive strike against Iran, militarized his own country’s capital, mused about launching military strikes against targets in Mexico and Central America, and now wants to rename the Pentagon — because “we want offense, too.”

The former and the latter are incompatible, whether Trump realizes this or not.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.