To hear Donald Trump and his team tell it, the Department of Defense’s name has officially been changed to the “Department of War.” That’s not altogether true.
As the president’s own written directive on this makes clear, he’s “rebranding” the department with secondary names and titles, but most of this is about symbolism and political theater. The actual name of the department remains unchanged — at least until Congress passes a bill saying otherwise.
“Department of War” appears slated to become one of those phrases that only Republicans use, joining “Democrat Party,” “Gulf of America,” “job creators” and “death tax.”
But just as notably, many of those who actually work at the Pentagon haven’t exactly embraced the rhetorical shift with enthusiasm. Politico reported:
Pentagon officials grappled Friday with the Herculean task of fulfilling President Donald Trump’s executive order to remold the enormous, global agency into the Department of War. Many expressed frustration, anger and downright confusion at the effort, which could cost billions of dollars for a cosmetic change that would do little to tackle the military’s most pressing challenges — such as countering a more aggressive alliance of authoritarian nations.
The Politico report, which was based on interviews with “half a dozen current and former defense officials,” and which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that DOD officials may need to change Defense Department seals on more than 700,000 facilities in 40 countries and all 50 states as a result of Trump’s order.
“This includes everything from letterhead for six military branches and dozens more agencies down to embossed napkins in chow halls, embroidered jackets for Senate-confirmed officials and the keychains and tchotchkes in the Pentagon store,” the article noted.
“I see there being a million small headaches and annoyances if this actually happens,” one defense official said. “It’ll eat up time and effort.”
As for the price tag, there’s been no official accounting to date, but The Hill reported, “The estimate to change the names of hundreds of Pentagon agencies and all their stationary, emblems and signage — both at home in the U.S. and at bases overseas — has been placed at upwards of billions of dollars.”
Around the same time, Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, told NBC News on Friday, “It’s hard to adequately plumb the depths of the stupidity of everything that goes into this.” Taken together, at issue is an unnecessary and costly rebranding campaign, which sends all of the wrong messages to the world about the United States and its intentions, which was sought by no one and is doing little more than annoying many Pentagon insiders. “This is purely for domestic political audiences,” a former defense official told Politico, adding, “[I]t will have absolutely zero impact on Chinese or Russian calculations. Worse, it will be used by our enemies to portray the United States as warmongering and a threat to international stability.” If the president and his team have thoughts as to how or why this makes Americans any safer, they’ve kept those ideas to themselves.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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