Contrary to critics and proponents, the Trump administration’s DOD rebranding is not likely to substantially change the institution.

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order that will rename the Department of Defense as the War Department. Although a permanent change of title will eventually require congressional review and approval, for now, the title “Department of War” will be used within the day-to-day operations of the former DOD and in its official pronouncements. 

Trump’s reasoning in support of this change is partly based on historical precedent, as the original War Department dates back to the eighteenth century and coexisted with the later-established Department of the Navy through the end of World War II. Both were superseded and later incorporated into the Department of Defense in 1949. The Department of Defense now encompasses all the major service branches, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines (part of the Department of the Navy as a separate Corps), Space Force, and Coast Guard (in wartime, otherwise under the Department of Homeland Security).

President Trump had something on his mind other than history. He and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth believe that the leadership of the US armed forces has become preoccupied with political correctness and institutional lethargy. While serving as a Fox News commentator prior to assuming his present job, Hegseth wrote a book about The War on Warriors based on his experiences in combat leadership and his assessment of the prevailing climate at the top levels of the US military. In his view, many of our Pentagon brass are all hat and no cattle.

Trump shares Hegseth’s appraisal of American military leadership and adds the sentiment that, for want of a better word, the title “Department of Defense” is too weak. It connotes to our enemies that we are not really serious about our willingness to go to war when necessary and invites aggression against American national interests. 

Changing the name to “Department of War” suggests that potential aggressors will be put on notice that America’s Incredible Hulk should not be trifled with. Our business is the deterrence of conflict and the conduct of war per se, or as General George Patton supposedly remarked: “Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.”

In support of this assessment, Trump puts forward a scorecard of wars won and lost by the United States. We won World War I and World War II, implying that the United States has not really “won” a war since then. At best, we have settled for ties or partial victories. This assessment is not limited to the White House. You can find arguments made by commentators on military-related websites, including some retired warriors with distinguished service records who provide similar evaluations of the US military experience. 

Much of this pessimism about American wars supposedly won or lost is based on an operational-tactical rather than a strategic view of the purposes of war. Winners and losers are determined by the extent to which the state’s political objectives are accomplished. Not all wars have the political objective of total destruction of the enemy and its armed forces. The World Wars are the exceptions. Most wars are fought for limited objectives and with limited means. This is so for several reasons. 

First, the growth in the destructive power of modern weapons in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has made the relationship between force and policy more complicated than ever. Nuclear weapons are useful for deterrence. Yet the actual use of nuclear weapons threatens the survival of the combatant nations and, if used in large numbers, most or all of the planet. 

Therefore, states with large nuclear arsenals must refrain from pushing their conflicts too far, or they will exceed both political and military rationality. Even below the nuclear threshold, modern conventional weapons are becoming more lethal, more expensive, and more technologically complex. The level of destruction in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022 exceeds that of any conflict in Europe since World War II. 

The second reason why wars are limited instead of total is that states find it harder to create narratives in support of major destruction that will track favorably with prevailing public opinion in their own countries, to say nothing of global perceptions and awareness. Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is an illustration of the difficulty states can have in fighting urban counterinsurgency and counterterror conflicts, not only with respect to combat operations, but also with respect to the information war and public narratives. 

The Netanyahu government feels justified in its war to eliminate Hamas as a terrorist group. Yet the military operations to accomplish this goal have brought about worldwide criticism of the Israeli government, including from prominent politicians within Israel. 

For better or worse, democracies require sustained popular support for protracted wars. In the Vietnam War, both the Johnson and Nixon administrations were faced with widespread domestic opposition to continued war fighting. As a result, Johnson declined to run for office in 1968, and Nixon was forced to adopt a plan for phased withdrawal of American combat forces, despite the inevitably unfavorable outcome for our South Vietnamese ally. 

Ever since the end of that war, some historians and military analysts have argued that better tactics or a more resolute political leadership could have provided the United States with a “victory” in Vietnam instead of a stalemate or defeat. On the other hand, no Congress or presidential administration would have continued the war in Vietnam beyond its obvious point of no return, in policy or in strategy, without public support. 

Will the advent of a “War Department” change a presently uninspiring US military mentality (as seen by the Trump administration) into a ferocious samurai mindset? The American armed forces are comprised of individuals who embody the American virtues of pragmatism, professionalism, and a sense of pride in their training, expertise, and dedication to the defense of their country. They volunteer for military service even when it requires risks that most civilians will never experience or accept. 

Our warriors are neither ideologues nor Mongol hordes. They must master technology, tactics, and strategy—and most of all, themselves. Their successes are the achievements of groups and teams, mostly anonymous, not the cinematic stereotypes of supermen and wonder women. The names of bureaucracies may change, but the nature of war never does.