Ministry of defence
type of ministry responsible for the armed forces and related agencies
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divided into ministries or departments. Such a department usually includes all branches of the military, and is usually controlled by a defence minister or secretary of defense. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in some the minister is only in charge of general budget matters and procurement of equipment, while in others they are also an integral part of the operational military chain of command.
Historically, such departments were referred to as a ministry of war or department of war, although they generally had authority only over the army of a country, with a separate department governing other military branches. Prior to World War II, most "ministries of war" were army ministries, while the navy and the air force, if they existed as separate branches, had their own departments. As late as 1953, for example, the Soviet Union had a "ministry of war" alongside a "ministry of the navy".
The public source identifies “Ministry of defence” as type of ministry responsible for the armed forces and related agencies. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ministry, defence and type.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ministry of defence”, the useful work is to connect “type of ministry responsible for the armed forces and related agencies” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1788820. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1953.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ministry of defence” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.