US Dept. Of War: What's in a Name Change?

Austin Bay on Sep 10, 2025

Down, direct and perhaps a bit dirty has its place, especially in the complex undertaking German strategic theorist Carl von Clausewitz called "politics by other means."

Politics by other means was Clausewitz's restrained definition of war. When economic enticements go bust and diplomatic "jaw jaw" deadlocks, destructive acts of violence become the mode of political discourse between rival human groups -- from tribes to superpowers.

President Donald Trump has decided to dispense with the name Dept. of Defense and revive the original nom de guerre Dept. of War.

Which raises what I think is the determinative question: Does changing the name of America's war-waging institution enhance war deterrence or, in other words, help convince a bad actor he will get killed if he doesn't make a deal, or, when deterrence fails, does altering the name increase the prospect of victory in deadly conflict?

Shakespeare scholars can shrug and ask, "What's in a name?" Well, scholars, audience impact for one and sales appeal for two. New York Yankees has a lot more impact than New York Highlanders. Marilyn Monroe has more box office punch than Norma Jeane Mortenson. Sydney Sweeney -- no need to mess with that name. Harley-Davidson sounds tough -- motorcycle money. Edsel. Say it. Now, would you buy one? Ford Motor Co. regrets that dud.

The Office of the Secretary of War has already changed the letterhead on its daily Pentagon Morning Press Clips newsletter to U.S. Dept. of War. The new government abbreviation is DOW. Dept. of War. The Dept. of Defense? The Cold War's DOD? Done, Obliterated, Disappeared.

So the future is back to the past -- 1947 to be exact, the year the War Dept. elapsed and the DOD emerged.

I'll sketch the reasoning. If Hiroshima and Nagasaki made waging all-out war impossible, then a Dept. of Defense -- defense to deter nuclear and non-nuclear threats -- made narrative warfare sense. Narrative warfare is the sales appeal angle.

At least it made some sense during the first few years of the Truman administration. North Korea's June 1950 invasion of South Korea, planned, bankrolled and supplied by Soviet Russia and Red China, showed full-scale conventional war could occur in a world with nuclear weapons.

The DOD name didn't deter the Korean War. Several critics argue the DOD never won a war. This gets into academic definitions. Was Desert Storm an operation or a war? It was a tenuous victory. Was the Cold War a war or just a great strategic siege? The Free World, led by the USA, won. And the Cold War never went thermonuclear.

As for Korea -- that war isn't over. An awkward armistice stopped the slugfest. Kim Jong Un is back to threatening Seoul and Tokyo with nuclear immolation. However, Japan has the fourth largest global GDP, and South Korea's in the global top 15.

DOD, as one instrument of U.S. policy, gained military stalemates that helped win diplomatic and economic victories. But a DOW could have done that.

In my view, today's biggest strategic threat is China's disintegrative warfare. Social chaos fed by crime, drugs, physical assault and illegal immigration swamping social welfare systems.

Moreover, until the Trump administration took over in January 2025, the U.S. military looked like a disintegrating institution -- disintegrating at the level of human beings willing to serve. During the Biden administration, DOD became infected by what Victor Davis Hanson called "social science and therapeutic approaches to war." Feel-good stuff, like always playing defense.

Disintegrative warfare. The term appears in "World-System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change" (2000).

In a disintegrative war, a "unitary belligerent becomes increasingly fragmented by secessions."

Instead of remaining the greatest nation on Earth, the U.S. becomes a flummoxed state unable to wield diplomatic, information, military and economic power with any effectiveness. DIME is the military acronym -- diplomacy, information, military and economic power.

The military is tasked with winning wars.

That's a hardcore mission, not feel-good therapy. The name Dept. of War might be very good for morale.

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To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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