White House to rebrand Pentagon the Department of War

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Friday to change the Department of Defense’s name to the Department of War, part of a broader effort to present a more aggressive, victorious military to the world.

A senior administration official confirmed the change, which would likely require an act of Congress. But the White House is looking for other alternatives that would avoid a vote, according to another person familiar with the deliberations. The people were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

A War Department existed after 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.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has embraced “warfighters” as part of the Pentagon’s identity, simply posted Thursday night on X, “Department of War.”

It would likely cost billions of dollars to change the names of hundreds of Pentagon agencies, their stationary, emblems, plaques and other signage at the Defense Department, along with and bases around the world. The cost could put a serious dent into the administration’s efforts to cut Pentagon spending and waste.

Trump’s effort to rename the department fits in with the administration’s wider reshaping of the federal government, from firing tens of thousands of federal employees to deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington.

The move would also be part of the Trump administration’s rapid-fire transformation of much of the post-World War II national security architecture set up by former President Harry Truman. The Trump administration has dramatically slashed the National Security Council that was created in the late 1940s and cut numerous Defense Department agencies.

Trump has brought up the change several times since taking office — including in front of allies during his press conference at the June NATO summit in The Hague. His push to change the agency’s name has intensified in recent months.

“As Department of War, we won everything. We won everything,” Trump said last month, referencing the two world wars. “We’re going to have to go back to that.”

Hegseth, in a Wednesday interview on Fox News, echoed Trump’s line. “We won WWI, and we won WWII, not with the Department of Defense, but with a War Department, with the Department of War," he said. "As the president has said, we're not just defense, we're offense."

Trump has said he thinks Congress would go along with him. "Defense is too defensive,” he said last month. “And we want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive too if we have to be. So, it just sounded to me like a better name."