> I answered in response to a different comment about the level of patience I have with men that think changing one word in the title of the bureaucracy in charge of war somehow meaningfully changes the reality or meaning of war (spoiler: none).

Except it wasn't just a change in the name in the department: the Department of War actually became the Department of the Army, the DoNavy was merged with, the Air Force was split off from being with-in the Army (USAAF -> USAF), creation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA, etc:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_of_1947

> But whether a war was actually offensive or defensive still came down to what story we wanted to tell ourselves at the end of the day.

And sometimes a war does not happen because someone has a big enough stick that other people don't want to risk it being used on them. It's not like the 'other side' was passively sitting around:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_empire

There needed to be various measures done (on a spectrum from more to less 'active') to keep things in check:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment