The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with a close 216-212 vote on July 22, 2026. The Senate returns to work today, and its NDAA draft contains similar language to the House version to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War. The NDAA could be finalized this month. On October 26, the Pentagon urged Congress to keep the language renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War in the final version of the NDAA. The Pentagon argues that the change will clarify the Department’s mission and project strength. But changing the name to “war” muddles the military’s mission and its purpose. Defense of America is what the U.S. military does, sometimes by war, but most often by deterrence.
In 2025, U.S. President Donald J. Trump created the “secondary title” of “Department of War” in an Executive Order, stating this name change “ensures peace through strength” and demonstrates “the ability and willingness to fight and win wars” and “not just to defend.” But because the Department of Defense is established by statute, only Congress can legally change its name, which is why the Pentagon wants Congress to keep this change in the final NDAA. But doing so would be a mistake. Changing the name from the “Department of Defense” to the “Department of War” may lead to the global perception of a weakening U.S. military by an apparent lack of strategic insight, a desire to return to historic wars of aggression, and a failure in moral clarity.
The failure in strategic insight is illustrated by the Department’s current website. It is labeled “Department of War” and then states in large, bold letters “We Are Your Defense.” “Department of Defense” clearly and unambiguously states the purpose and mission of the U.S. military: to defend America by deterring war and ensuring its security. By analogy, U.S. police cars are known to display a motto like “protect and serve” because police want to keep the peace. If police cars stated “detain and arrest”—even if that is something they must do at times to keep the peace—it would likely agitate the community and disrupt the peace. Likewise, a department of “defense” signals to the world that the United States prefers peace, even if the military must go to war at times to achieve peace. One could object to this analogy, arguing it highlights the issue: a department of “defense” allows the military to be deployed as police overseas. The U.S. military is prohibited by law to police domestically. Though President Trump’s threat to use the military to police Chicago revealed how the name “WAR” fails, unlike “defense,” to show the restraint required to promote peace. The objection to the police/military analogy similarly fails because it does not account for limits to the use of the police domestically, and the military overseas. Jurisdiction limits the police. Congressional authorizations limit the military. Both the police and the military need to be limited. “Defense” provides a limit, “war” does not.
Changing the Department’s name from defense to war could also be viewed as an indication of a U.S. desire to engage in wars of aggression. In 1945, following World War II—the deadliest conflict in human history—the United States and other founding members committed to refrain from the use of force, including war. Specifically, they agreed to refrain from “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state” in Article 2(4) of the United Nations (UN) Charter. The UN Charter was ratified by U.S. President Harry S. Truman in 1945, and it lists two exceptions to the prohibition on war: (1) authorization of force by the UN Security Council in Chapter VII; and (2) the inherent right of “individual or collective self-defense” by member states in Article 51. Treaties are international law. In the U.S. Constitution, U.S. treaties are “the supreme Law of the Land.”
The U.S. National Security Act was amended in 1949 to create the Department of Defense, which likely provided some reassurance to the world of the U.S. military’s purpose—defense—consistent with the UN Charter. Changing the department’s name from “defense” to “war” could feed Russian and Chinese propaganda that paints the United States as an aggressive country. And other countries may view U.S. President Trump’s stated “willingness and availability to wage war to secure what is ours” as a threat to peace like China’s willingness to take Taiwan by force. A willingness to wage war by a newly codified U.S. Department of War would appear inconsistent, at the very least, with a commitment to refrain from war without UN authorization or in defense.
Beyond the law, the proposed name change would break with a near-universal international practice. Since World War II, States have generally organized their militaries under ministries of “defense.” The only current exception to this practice appears to be Burkina Faso, whose military government renamed its “Ministry of Defense and Veterans Affairs” to the “Ministry of War and Patriotic Defense” in 2026. The name change was seen by some as a signal to further politicize the security sector. Regardless, Burkina Faso is a military dictatorship, and one of the poorest countries in the world. According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the country’s military has allegedly engaged in ethnic massacres. Thus, changing the name of the U.S. Department of Defense to the Department of War would associate its name with a military accused of ethnic massacres, permitting a perceived failure in moral clarity and calling into question U.S. motivation for the change.
The Pentagon argues that “war” projects strength, but the record suggests the name has little to do with it. Since “the Department of Defense” got its name in 1949, the U.S. military proved in 1991, through its Cold War victory over the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its overwhelming victory in Operation Desert Storm, that it had become the most powerful military the world has ever seen. The U.S. and allied victory in Operation Desert Storm was widely recognized as one of the primary motivators for the acceleration and modernization of China’s military. China recognized the U.S. military’s capability, not its name. Changing the department’s name to “war” does not increase its hard power and, worse, it weakens its soft power. By using soft power—attraction grounded in legitimacy attained through UN authorization for Kuwait’s defense—the United States was able to attract and secure allies for Operation Desert Storm. The UN Charter prohibits war, so “war” branding likely weakens the legitimacy needed to attract allies. Since the U.S. military exists to defend America—its freedom, people, and territory—the “Department of Defense” is still the most honest and the strongest name for the U.S. military.
