Since taking over the Pentagon, Secretary Pete Hegseth has been putting policies in place to project what he calls a “new warrior ethos” – including earlier this month rebranding the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.”
Some of these moves have been cosmetic. “Department of War” seals have been bolted to walls and podiums at American military bases worldwide. And after years of being allowed subtle shades of lipstick, female service members were ordered last week to no longer wear it, while military men have been told that if they don’t shave daily, they might be forced to leave the service.
Beyond this, analysts are watching to see whether the Pentagon’s rebranding effort signals a more aggressive approach to military action. Mr. Hegseth himself, in announcing the Defense Department’s name change – still unofficial without congressional action – said the United States will be going “on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.”
Why We Wrote This
The rebranding of the Defense Department comes alongside other interventionist moves, like bombing Iran and striking boats in the Caribbean. A key question is whether these actions signal posturing or a bigger shift away from President Donald Trump’s “America First” position.
In some ways, President Donald Trump has appeared more willing to deploy the military than he was during his first administration. He has bombed suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, unilaterally attacked Iranian nuclear sites, and sent National Guard troops into two American cities. He has also suggested he might send U.S. forces back to Afghanistan and made sweeping threats about invading Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Joshua Roberts/Reuters/File
Still, it is yet to be seen whether all this represents a new approach to external conflict, such as some sort of peace-through-strength doctrine. For now, despite the more aggressive posturing, the president’s oft-stated desire to avoid expensive entanglements appears intact.
“There’s a huge difference in tone between the first and second Trump administrations,” says retired Col. Mark Cancian, senior adviser in the defense and security department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The president has shown increased willingness to use the military in ways that have “enormous implications” for policy and the rule of law. Still, he adds, “despite what the administration says, these aren’t wars.” The tough rhetoric, he adds, hasn’t yet translated into more combat operations or more U.S. boots on the ground abroad.
In the coming days, defense analysts will be keeping a close eye out for the release of the National Defense Strategy, which, for each administration, highlights what it sees as the most critical security challenges and how the U.S. military plans to address them. An early leaked report, published in Politico, indicates that the Trump administration’s new strategy will deemphasize threats from China and Russia and highlight threats facing the homeland instead.
Trump 2.0
In each of his three presidential campaigns, Mr. Trump ran as an anti-interventionist. During his campaign in 2016, he upended decades of Republican orthodoxy with his “America first” foreign policy, taking swipes not only at President Barack Obama but also at President George W. Bush. Mr. Bush and his neoconservative advisers, Mr. Trump said, had pushed America into ill-advised wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Despite breaking with leaders in his own party, Mr. Trump and his more isolationist stance resonated among voters, including within the conservative base.
“Many Americans don’t want to constantly be at war,” says Matthew Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a foreign policy adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. “It’s wasteful, it’s chaotic, it gets expensive.”
But Mr. Trump’s second term has felt different from the start. The international landscape has changed, with wars raging in Gaza and Ukraine. And despite fears that his administration would push for a “dormant NATO” in the face of Russian threats, Mr. Trump is actively engaged with the alliance and in June succeeded in getting members to boost their defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product.
On Tuesday, President Trump shifted his tone on the Ukraine war, writing in a Truth Social post that Kyiv could, with NATO support, win back territory it has lost to Russia. “With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option,’’ he wrote. “Why not?”
He concluded: “We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them.”
At home, the Trump administration has acted almost as though it were on a wartime footing. In addition to more stringent demands around troop readiness, which Mr. Hegseth asserts was lacking, the Pentagon has curbed press freedoms for reporters who cover the military and defense officials who talk to them.
Last Friday, the Pentagon press corps received a memo stating that, due to national security concerns, even journalists vetted by the Pentagon’s security service can no longer visit defense officials’ offices, as they have done for decades, without an official escort. Defense officials also asked reporters to sign an agreement not to use any information that had not been authorized for release – or lose their access. The National Press Club called the move a “direct assault on independent journalism.” Secretary Hegseth responded that “the ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon – the people do.”
Less controversially, the Army has introduced a new, tougher fitness test for soldiers in which continued failure could result in discharge. ”I’m actually going to have to work hard [to prepare] for it,” says a senior U.S. military officer who asked for anonymity because he’s not authorized to talk to the media. “My human self is like, darn it. But from a lethal fighting force mentality, it makes sense.”
A greater willingness to use force
Not even a year into Mr. Trump’s second term, some analysts see a greater willingness to use military force by an administration that had once appeared to aspire to isolationism.
Last week, the president, who campaigned in 2016 and 2020 on getting America out of Afghanistan, suggested that troops could soon find themselves back in their old stomping grounds, setting up shop at a former U.S. base north of Kabul to better counter China. He also authorized a sizable shipment of arms to Ukraine, to be paid for by NATO countries.
As part of a new war on drugs that the Trump administration is waging with U.S. forces, the U.S. bombed three boats in the Caribbean this month. Officials said the boats were carrying Venezuelan narcotics to America. Those reports have not been verified, and many have questioned the legality of the strikes.
Just after the first Caribbean boat strike – which the Trump administration claims was needed to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States – Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that he had earlier advised the president to “blow up something” as a warning to drug cartels, according to the Associated Press.
But the more aggressive stance and use of the military is getting pushback, including some from unexpected quarters.
This summer, for example, Mr. Trump sent thousands of National Guard troops to two U.S. cities to address protests, crime, and unauthorized immigration. That move met with even more protests. He also ordered the unilateral bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities – drawing rare criticism from some of his supporters.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson called Republicans who supported the U.S. strikes on Iran “warmongers,” and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, usually one of the president’s staunchest allies, posted on X: “Foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction.”
Republican pushback
The proposed official renaming of the Defense Department to the War Department, an effort led by GOP Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah, has also generated pushback from some in the Republican coalition.
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky criticized the rebranding as meaningless without additional resources for the military. “If we call it the Dept. of War, we’d better equip the military to actually prevent and win wars,’’ he posted on X on Sept. 5.
“It almost seems [Department of Defense] fits Trump better. Changing it back to the Department of War would seemingly fit a neocon president better,” Fred Lucas of the conservative Daily Signal suggested on X.
Still, these intraparty debates haven’t diminished the president’s hold on the GOP – or popularity with the base. For now, President Trump’s followers are “inclined to follow where Donald Trump will lead,” Mr. Duss says. “But they still have real concerns about America’s tendency to constantly get drawn into conflicts.”
