From Defensive to Offensive: How the US Department of War's Rebrand Affects the World
The United States maintained a War Department from the founding era until the post-World War II reorganization of its national security apparatus. The National Security Act of 1947 established a Department of Defense in the context of a new great-power environment and institutional effort to integrate land, naval, and air power under unified civilian leadership. “Defense” became the label for the state’s primary instrument of organized violence that communicates a more protective rather than expansive approach. This administrative history explains why such a name change is extremely important, as names carry institutional legacies and set baseline expectations for purpose and legitimacy. Rechanging the United States Department of Defense to the Department of War after its dissolution 78 years ago is an act that is filled with severe strategic, political, legal, and cultural consequences, as it would reframe the way the state perceives and justifies the use of force.
A Department of “War” would alter adversarial perceptions and likely intensify insecurity dynamics. This is referred to as “The Security Dilemma” in International Relations, which is when the increase in one state's security (such as increasing its military strength or, in this case, changing their department of defense to department of war) leads opposing states to fear for their own security. Consequently, security-increasing measures can also lead to tensions, escalation, and even conflict with one or more parties. When one of the United States’ primary agencies is explicitly labeled for war, opposing states will be cautious about the probability of possible offensive action. The renaming strengthens adversarial narratives that the United States is more openly hostile than ever. Behavioral and experimental work on signaling in the security dilemma shows how even non-material signals (for example, language, doctrines, and public statements) can increase the perceived need for countermeasuring possible threats. Which brings me to my next point in that language also matters for politics. Critical discourse scholars and analysts of militarization show that metaphors and euphemisms reshape public understanding of violence and normalize institutional priorities that might otherwise provoke resistance. The Copenhagen School’s securitization framework treats speech acts (the central mechanism by which an issue is transformed into a security threat that justifies extraordinary measures) as mechanisms that convert ordinary policy problems into security problems. Renaming a central executive organ from “Defense” to “War” is precisely that kind of speech act, as it signals a shift in the referent object (from preserving safety to organizing for combat). In practice, the label “defense” frames the United States’ military posture as primarily protective and constrained by deterrence, while the label “war” frames a greater capability and readiness to employ force.
Studies on political rhetoric and militarization show how naming choices shape public appetite for force by altering the perceived moral register of an institution’s actions. Replacing “Defense” with “War” would force an explicit recognition of violent ends as central to the state’s security. The rename would make it harder for political leaders and the general public to claim that every overseas operation is necessarily defensive or for self-defense. This would weaken acts that are often used to justify military expeditions in other countries, as political leaders would face explicit cognitive and political costs when proposing missions that advance interests through organized violence because the name itself foregrounds the moral and fiscal costs of war. A Department of War label would also likely produce anxiety among allies who rely on American reassurance but also fear entanglement in initiatives framed as offensive. States that balance on the edge between formal alliance commitments and hedging strategies would reassess the risks of closer entanglement. Some would distance themselves, and some would demand clearer legal and parliamentary constraints before offering support. The tactical coherence that “defense” implies, which is protecting a territory, would be replaced by a more potentially violent posture.
As for the legal aspects, the name change would not in itself alter the Constitution or statutory law, but it would have secondary legal and doctrinal impacts. War traditionally triggers a distinct set of domestic and international legal frameworks, such as laws of armed conflict, wartime economic authorities, and emergency powers. If policymakers and courts begin to treat the department as primarily a warfighting instrument rather than a defensive caretaker, this could shift interpretations of executive authority in favor of expansive wartime powers. Rebranding would incentivize doctrinal emphasis on power projection and in turn would have downstream effects on how civilians are taught about mission, professional ethics, and legal compliance in war.
Pop cultures such as Call of Duty and Battlefield can also shape imaginaries of war for large audiences and normalize violent templates for political conflict. Academic work on Call of Duty and similar franchises demonstrates that these games reproduce narratives of heroic intervention and moral clarity that mirror political framings promoted by wartime rhetoric. A Department of War label will benefit from these narratives in making the military’s public brand and entertainment depictions mutually reinforcing. The name change therefore strengthens feedback between cultural production and political reality. Games gain representational authority as mirrors of the U.S. war machine as the institution gains a cultural reservoir where war can be considered normalized, exciting, and morally justified. This produces an environment where the militarization of policy, society, and everyday imagination becomes structurally easier.
Though this rebrand may also not change anything significant. Administrative labels have changed in the past without wholesale mission drift. Institutional path dependencies, legal constraints (including congressional war powers and treaty obligations), and public backlash can blunt the practical impact of a renaming. Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War would be a high-leverage political act. It would make explicit what much of U.S. policy practice already demonstrates, which is that they can organize, train, and sustain forces capable of waging sustained violence beyond its borders. That explicitness carries democratic value in transparency and truth-telling but also carries strategic and normative risk. The name itself is not determinative, but they recalibrate the political ecology in which decisions about the use of force are made. The balance of effects depends on the accompanying legal, institutional, and civic responses. If the label is adopted without new constraints and oversight, the likely outcome is a measurable shift toward greater normalization of war as policy. If the label is paired with stronger democratic checks, it could force more honest debates about when and why the United States chooses violence as an instrument of statecraft.
Artikel ini ditulis oleh Evan Andhika Suci, mahasiswa Hubungan Internasional dari Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Politik UIN Jakarta