“Department of War” Name Change, Which Isn’t Even Official, Will Cost $2 Billion

The move prioritizes “political theater over responsible governance,” a group of Democrats said in a statement.

By Chris Walker , 

Truthout

November 14, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth installs a sign reading "Department of War" while onlookers watch in the background.

DOW Rapid Response via X

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President Donald Trump’s order to rebrand the Department of Defense (DOD) as the “Department of War” this past summer will cost billions of dollars, a new report suggests.

In September, Trump issued an executive order seeking to change the department’s name. Only a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the president can make the change official, but the order requires all government agencies within the executive branch to refer to the DOD as the Department of War.

“This name sharpens the Department’s focus on our own national interest and our adversaries’ focus on our willingness and availability to wage war to secure what is ours,” Trump’s order states.

But the change — which has no impact on the mission, makeup, or strategies of the DOD — comes with financial consequences.

According to six sources speaking to NBC News — including two senior Republican congressional staffers, two senior Democratic congressional staffers, and two other individuals briefed on the price tag — the name change could cost as much as $2 billion. This includes administrative costs like changing signage (both within the U.S. and around the world), letterheads, employee badges, vast amounts of rewriting coding on websites and internal software, and other items.

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Officials at the DOD tried to justify the costs by parroting the language of Trump’s executive order.

“The Department of War is aggressively implementing the name change directed by President Trump, and is making the name permanent,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, adding that a “final cost estimate has not been determined at this time” and that the name change “is essential because it reflects the Department’s core mission: winning wars.”

The U.S. has conducted hundreds of military operations over the past 100 years, including lengthy invasions and occupations in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as its current, and likely illegal, attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. But the last time the government formally declared war was during WWII — meaning that, definitionally speaking, the idea of changing the DOD’s name to reflect a mission of “winning wars” is flawed.

Several signs have already been changed, including one outside the Pentagon that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth installed himself as part of a photo op this week. But other signs have yet to be removed and replaced, NBC News reported.



Republican members of Congress have submitted legislation to make the name change official, but the administration has not formally pushed for lawmakers to prioritize it.

Democrats have decried the DOD’s informal change to the Department of War as being “both wasteful and hypocritical.”

The move “appears to prioritize political theater over responsible governance, while diverting resources from core national security functions,” a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in September, requesting information on cost estimates.

The name change signals that the president and his department heads are willing to spend money on pet projects while making cuts elsewhere, ostensibly justifying doing so as a means of reducing federal spending.

But those cuts have come with huge consequences, including detrimental effects on military veterans. Among the plethora of cuts that occurred under the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” earlier this year, reductions in spending within the Department of Veterans Affairs led to “severe and immediate impacts,” including the cancellation of “life-saving cancer trials,” doctors within the department said in a message to the administration at the time.

The cuts also meant veterans would “lose access to therapies” and other important treatment options, those doctors added.