How To Erode the World’s Greatest Military - Victor Davis Hanson n

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American Greatness

The U.S. Army has met only 40 percent of its 2022 recruiting goals.  

In fact, all branches of the military are facing historic resistance to their current recruiting efforts. If some solution is not found quickly, the armed forces will radically shrink or be forced to lower standards—or both.  

Such a crisis occurs importunely as an aggressive Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea believe the Biden Administration and the Pentagon have lost traditional U.S. deterrence.  

 

That pessimistic view abroad unfortunately is now shared by many Americans at home. In 2021, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute conducted its periodic poll of attitudes toward the U.S. military. The result was astonishing. Currently, only 45 percent of Americans polled expressed a great deal of trust in their armed forces. Confidence had dived 25 points since an early 2018 poll. 

Military officials cite both the usual and a new array of challenges in finding suitable young soldiers—drug use, gang affiliation, physical and mental incapacities, and the dislocations arising from the COVID pandemic and vaccination mandates. But they are too quiet about why such supposedly longer-term obstacles suddenly coalesced in 2022—as if their own leadership and policies have had no effect in discouraging tens of thousands of young men and women to join them. :snip:

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Oct 15, 2022 Ward breaks down the U.S. Navy's latest advertising campaign.

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Attrition: Resistance to Army Reserve Recruiters

October 14, 2022: The American National Guard is having a hard time maintaining its strength, with more members retiring or not reenlisting and fewer new people joining. Currently the Guard is suffering a net loss of 7,500 personnel a year and that number is increasing. Recruiters report that there are fewer recruits because two decades of war are over and the number of times the Guard is called up to deal with local violence or special problems like border control is not appealing. And then there are the 14,000 Guard members threatened with dismissal for refusing to get the covid19 vaccine. The Federal government is demanding it but Guard members are young and very healthy and noted that people in that category rarely suffer from covid19. Currently the dismissal of the 14,000 is on hold, but the 14,000 have had their pay and benefits suspended. This situation is having a negative effect on recruiters and is one more reason not to join the Guard.

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The U.S. military has had to cope with a lot of recruiting problems over the last few years. These include financial, suitability, leadership, communications, morale, political and ideological difficulties. Recruiters were coping, and meeting their quotas for enough new recruits to replace losses due to retirement, casualties, illness or not-reenlisting. In 2022 the recruiters are having their worst year ever. Each Recruiting Location has annual and monthly quotas for each service (army, navy, air force and marines) based on past performance. Recruits are easier to find in some parts of the country and this is reflected in the quotas. So far in 2022 monthly quotas are not being met by a large margin. It’s worse for the army, which is attracting less than half the recruits the Department of Defense analysts expected. The senior military leadership proposed offering record-high bonuses (up to $50,000) for eligible recruits. Polls indicate this will not have much impact on the current situation.

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The major problem is political demands. Congress makes the laws and the military follows them. The military has been all-volunteer since the 1970s so military service is not mandatory. If potential recruits, especially those influenced by word-of-mouth, are put off by current conditions, they don’t volunteer, and this has been the principal reason for the recent nose-dive in recruiting. It applies to officers as well as enlisted troops and the reserves as well. Most recruiting is actually driven by favorable reports from veterans, and recently those have been negative due both to the collapse of Afghanistan and the military leadership giving in to political correctness. The current situation is worse because the current president and Congress have the lowest approval ratings in history. The approval levels are lowest in regions which usually provide a disproportionate number of volunteers for military service. In the next two years there will be elections for a new president and members of Congress. That is expected to help with recruiting but only after the word-of-mouth turns around and that will take another year or two, if it happens. In the meantime, recruiters are under increasing pressure to find recruits. As in the past, this is producing more burnout for recruiters. Recruiting is already seen as a hardship assignment and eligible NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers) avoid it any way they can. Some leave the military by not reenlisting.

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