I agree that, given the actual history of the US military and foreign policy, it is a harmful and misleading euphimism.

It is also, however, the official name of the department, as determined by the US Congress who are empowered to determine such names.

In no case I am happy to humor this administration's decisions, especially when they are illegal/extra-legal/paralegal. If they wanted to actually rename the department, there's a clear process for that, and then perhaps we could "humor" that effort. As it stands, there's nothing here to humor, since there is no decision, only illegal aspiration.

Indeed, “defence” so obviously an Orwellian term for these departments, I’m very much in favour of the change.