How has Trump-era policy toward the Department of Defense changed under current civilian and military leadership?
Executive summary
The Trump administration’s early 2025 civilian and military leadership enacted a rapid suite of executive orders and policy directives that reverse Biden-era personnel and inclusion policies, expand the Pentagon’s role on the southern border, and direct internal regulatory freezes — actions that include revoking EO 14004 (military service inclusion) and ordering updates to DoD medical standards within 60 days [1]. Outside observers and legal trackers note a broader deregulatory push across agencies and ongoing litigation and state challenges over some deployments and policy moves [2] [3] [4].
1. A deliberate repudiation of Biden-era inclusion rules — personnel policy rewrites
The White House issued an order explicitly revoking Executive Order 14004, which had opened pathways for transgender service members, and directed the Secretary of Defense to change DoD Instruction 6130.03 on medical standards and retention within 60 days to reflect new definitions and prohibitions on “expressing a false ‘gender identity’” [1]. That is a direct, administratively enforceable rollback of prior personnel guidance rather than a congressional statute; it replaces prior executive-branch policy with new medical-standards language [1].
2. Changing the tone and title: signals of deeper institutional reshaping
Beyond personnel directives, the Trump White House has issued many executive orders in 2025 that collectively signal broad institutional reshaping of national security and regulatory posture, with private-sector trackers and law firms cataloguing a large number of EOs and regulatory rescissions across agencies [5] [6]. Legal and policy trackers (Brookings’ Reg Tracker and others) are monitoring these changes as part of a second-administration deregulatory sweep [2].
3. Militarizing border policy and expanding DoD operational roles
Multiple executive actions from inauguration onward directed the military to take a visible role at the southern border, including orders authorizing federal lands to be designated as military installations and describing military missions “for sealing the southern border,” a shift that scholars and trade outlets say increases the Pentagon’s domestic operational footprint [3]. Those deployments and reassignments have produced litigation and state-level lawsuits and legal stays in several instances, indicating contested legality and political pushback [4] [3].
4. Administrative tools used: EOs, regulatory freezes and a fast-moving docket
The administration used a “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” EO and a string of rescissions and replacement orders to halt, withdraw, or replace prior executive actions — including on AI, privacy, and other areas — which affects DoD-adjacent rulemaking and interagency coordination [7] [5]. The pace and breadth of these EOs are being tracked by policy shops and law firms because they can reorient DoD priorities by changing interagency directives, grant authorities, and compliance requirements [2] [6].
5. Internal DoD leadership implications: civilian-military friction and implementation burdens
Directing the Secretary of Defense to rewrite medical standards and rescind prior inclusion orders places DoD civilian and uniformed leaders in a position to implement politically driven personnel policy quickly. The orders make failure to implement a matter of discipline in some executive actions across the administration, placing pressure on career officials and commanders to follow new policy timelines [1] [8]. Available sources do not mention how senior military leaders individually have responded in public statements to these specific directives.
6. Legal and political counter-currents — litigation, congressional actors, and watchdogs
The surge of executive actions and troop deployments has prompted lawsuits and administrative stays in several jurisdictions, particularly around domestic National Guard and federal force deployments to cities and states; courts and state governments have challenged some deployments as unlawful [4]. Policy trackers also report use of Congressional Review Act mechanisms and other legislative tools to challenge or reverse agency rules, indicating a multi-branch contest over defense-related policy [2] [7].
7. Two competing narratives about intent and risk
Supporters frame the changes as restoring “readiness, medical rigor, and the military’s apolitical mission,” pointing to revised DoD medical standards and an emphasis on operational focus [1]. Critics warn these moves politicize personnel decisions, reduce force inclusivity, and risk legal exposure and morale problems while militarizing domestic policy through expanded border and internal deployments [3] [4]. Both perspectives are visible in the public record and in the policy-tracking outlets cited above [1] [3] [2].
8. What’s missing and how to watch next
Current reporting documents the orders, their stated aims, and early legal pushback, but available sources do not mention detailed implementation outcomes inside uniformed ranks, retention statistics after the changes, or systematic accounts of how senior military officers are navigating the new directives [1] [4]. Watch for updated DoD instructions, court rulings on deployments, and Brookings/Holland & Knight trackers for concrete metrics on what changes persist versus what is stayed or enjoined [2] [6].
Limitations: this analysis relies on the cited executive orders, policy trackers, and media reporting provided. It does not attempt to adjudicate legal claims beyond what those sources report and flags where implementation detail is not yet available [1] [2].