President Trump’s attempt to remove four letters from “Department of Defense” and rename it “Department of War” could cost more than $100 million, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated.
On September 5, the President signed an executive order to restore the names of the George Washington-era Department of War and Office of the Secretary of War as secondary titles for the Department of Defense and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
This order stated that the Secretary of War would later submit a presidential request to permanently change the name of the department.
However, changing the image of the country’s largest employer is no easy feat. The Pentagon oversees 1.32 million active duty personnel and 750,000 civilian personnel.
According to the CBO, which responded to a request for information from Senators Jeff Merkley and Chuck Schumer, this change would cost approximately $10 million for a “modest implementation” of the change, primarily within the department itself. This sum could be absorbed as an opportunity cost, the CBO added, paid from existing budgets.
But there are two ends of the scale: Minimal implementation could cost a few million dollars, the CBO said, but at the extreme, it could cost taxpayers $125 million.
“Generally speaking, costs would include staff time spent updating document templates, revising websites, or changing letterhead, time that could be spent on activities the department had planned to conduct prior to the issuance of the executive order,” the CBO wrote. “Similarly, funds used for signage or ceremonial items could reduce the resources available for planned items or activities.”
The scale of the costs depends on how “aggressively” the rebranding is deployed and how it will be prioritized in relation to remaining activities and “ongoing missions”. A more aggressive rollout, for example, could include “immediate replacement of stationery, signage and nameplates” instead of replacing them when existing stock is exhausted.
“The quicker the changes were implemented, the more parts of the DoD the changes applied, and the more comprehensive the name change, the more costly it would be,” the CBO added.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the now aptly named War Department has refocused on readiness and lethality – and its title now reflects its status as the most powerful fighting force in the world,” the White House said. Fortune. “The White House is working hand in hand with the Department of War on implementing the executive order. »
One of the most expensive initiatives of the proposed change would be renaming air bases. Even in March 2023, the Army projected it would cost at least $39 million to rename nine posts: Forts AP Hill, Benning, Bragg, Gordon, Hood, Lee, Pickett, Polk and Rucker. That was almost double the Naming Commission’s estimate a year earlier, which put the price at $21 million.
Costs will also be incurred for other non-federal entities if the War Department decides to pursue its name change as part of a comprehensive approach. For example, the CBO points out that North Carolina spent $400,000 in 2023 to change the name of Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty, just to rename it Fort Bragg again last summer.
