Pentagon officials grappled Friday with the Herculean task of fulfilling President Donald Trump’s executive order to remold the enormous, global agency into the Department of War.
Many expressed frustration, anger and downright confusion at the effort, which could cost billions of dollars for a cosmetic change that would do little to tackle the military’s most pressing challenges — such as countering a more aggressive alliance of authoritarian nations.
The details of the order Trump signed Friday are still vague, but officials may need to change Defense Department seals on more than 700,000 facilities in 40 countries and all 50 states. This includes everything from letterhead for six military branches and dozens more agencies down to embossed napkins in chow halls, embroidered jackets for Senate-confirmed officials and the keychains and tchotchkes in the Pentagon store.
“This is purely for domestic political audiences,” said a former defense official. “Not only will this cost millions of dollars, it will have absolutely zero impact on Chinese or Russian calculations. Worse, it will be used by our enemies to portray the United States as warmongering and a threat to international stability.”
This article is based on interviews with more than half a dozen current and former defense officials, many of whom have insight into the broader sentiment in the department. The people were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
POLITICO reported Thursday that the Trump administration planned to change the Defense Department’s name to the Department of War to present a more aggressive image of its military to the world.
“We won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything before that and in between, and then we decided to go woke, and we changed the name to DOD. So, we’re going Department of War,” Trump said at an Oval Office press conference on Friday announcing the move.
A formal name change would likely require an act of Congress, although a person familiar with the deliberations said the White House was looking for ways to avoid a congressional vote.
The White House said in a fact sheet that Trump’s executive order authorizes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to refer to himself as “Secretary of War” in all official communications and to recommend actions that will ensure that the name change sticks across the department. It also said the Department of War can serve as a secondary name, which may allow Hegseth to implement the action but help avoid changes to the law.
A Defense Department official, who asked to be referred to as a “War Department” official, said the costs of the move are expected to fluctuate as it is implemented.
That didn’t assuage some employees. “I see there being a million small headaches and annoyances if this actually happens,” said a defense official. “It’ll eat up time and effort.”
A War Department existed from U.S. independence until 1947, when the Truman administration split the Army and Air Force into separate military branches and joined them with the then-independent Navy to form a new agency. An act of Congress two years later coined it the Department of Defense.
“We know how to rebrand without having to go crazy,” Trump said Friday in response to questions about the potential cost of the move. The president said he was unsure whether he needed congressional approval for the name change, but would press ahead.
Some Republicans, including Florida Sen. Rick Scott and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, already are sponsoring legislation to change the name.
But the proposal took fire from the top Senate Republican overseeing Pentagon spending, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The former Senate majority leader reupped his criticism that Trump’s 2026 Pentagon budget request lags inflation.
“If we call it the Dept. of War, we’d better equip the military to actually prevent and win wars,” McConnell said on X. “Can’t preserve American primacy if we’re unwilling to spend substantially more on our military than Carter or Biden. ‘Peace through strength’ requires investment, not just rebranding.”
Democrats were quick to highlight the irony of the action by a president who appears to covet a Nobel Peace Prize and has pledged to end wars in Gaza and Ukraine. They also accused the White House of trying to distract from actual issues.
“It is a very dangerous environment,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Friday on MSNBC. “For the president and the secretary of Defense to spend time and energy [on a] distraction from what we need to do — to focus on the readiness of our troops who are serving — [is] nothing more than an effort to distract from other issues that are going on in the country.”
Hegseth, who has pushed for a more lethal, “warfighter ethos” in the ranks, said the decision will “set the tone for the country.”
But the seemingly ad hoc rollout of the name change has caused confusion within the building. One Pentagon official, who independently decided to squat on the Department of War LinkedIn page to prevent a foreign adversary or Trump administration critic from taking it over, openly asked on the social network to whom he should hand the page.
The Pentagon rebranded its X account as the “Department of War,” replete with a different seal for the avatar, but the page’s banner still had the old DOD logo. The Pentagon on Friday afternoon redirected users from defense.gov to war.gov, which was temporarily down.
It took the Defense Department weeks to scrub agency websites that contained references to diversity, equity and inclusion after the Trump administration demanded it be removed, said another defense official. Officials are imagining a longer-term headache this time around.
“That was just taking down photos,” the person said. “The seal will have to change and thus anything with it.”
The change is bound to flummox the many universities, nonprofits and contractors that rely on the Defense Department for funding — and potentially pose a huge messaging challenge.
“On a tactical level, it would mean having to rebrand a mountain of contracting, marketing, business development materials, you name it, both digital and otherwise, that specifically cite the Department of Defense or DOD,” said a defense industry consultant.
“More strategically, even philosophically, it could raise new questions about what it means to be supporting the Department of War, which likely sends a more belligerent message to our allies and adversaries alike.”
Connor O’Brien and Daniella Cheslow contributed reporting for this story.
