“What’s in a name?” asked Juliet, in William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy “Romeo and Juliet.” It turns out, quite a lot – especially in the case of the United States’ rebranding of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. The War Department is going to fight to win, not to lose. If two or more nuclear powers are confident in the knowledge that a nuclear strike would lead to an assured nuclear retaliation, their stake in preventing nuclear war is greater. This logic contradicts the first principle of nuclear deterrence, which posits that nuclear wars cannot be won and should never be fought. The Department of War was first renamed the Department of Defense in 1949 to reflect the demands of modern conflict.