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The Pentagon started crunching numbers and came to the conclusion that we don’t have enough soldiers to fight a war. Bringing back the draft wouldn’t even help much because kids today are useless. “Endemic youth obesity, record levels of physical unfitness, mental health issues exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, and drug use have rendered the vast majority of young Americans ineligible for military service.”
Pentagon scrounging soldiers
The Pentagon “isn’t ready for another war.” That’s “because it doesn’t have the troops.” Chances for rounding up the numbers needed are slim. While the headlines are dominated by weapons and hardware, technology is useless without the soldiers to carry it into battle. So far, the war between Russia and Ukraine has cost each side around 200,000 casualties.
“Though U.S. weapons and munitions have been critical to Kyiv’s war effort, it was territorial militias and hastily trained citizen-soldiers who helped save Ukraine from total conquest in 2022.”
Russia was only saved at one point by “a partial mobilization of more than 300,000 troops that stabilized Russia’s lines and prevented a potential collapse in late 2022.”
Both sides keep piling up the bodies, both sides are “desperate to keep the flow of new recruits going, to the point where ranks have opened to older men, women, and convicts.” The Pentagon barely has enough to man the first assault if we were to have a war.
After Vietnam, we did away with the draft. That happened in 1973. Conscription was never popular at home but patriotism was already fading fast. While today we have an “All-Volunteer Force,” young people don’t volunteer unless they’re bribed.
That’s the job of recruiters. The Pentagon hopes to enlist around 150,000 mostly young Americans each year. To do it, potential matches “are individually located, pitched, and incentivized to serve.” That gets expensive but money isn’t the problem. For several years, nobody has been coming anywhere close to their recruiting goals.
Fighting to win
Fighting a war and winning it are two entirely different things, as the Pentagon learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither war was a victory.
If we were to square off against Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea it “would be an entirely different proposition, with the possibility of more casualties in a few weeks than the United States suffered in the entire Global War on Terrorism.”
The Pentagon has decided to face the harsh reality that “there aren’t enough Americans willing and able to fill the military’s ranks.”
Along with huge gaps in the recruiting stats across the board, “recruiting challenges have impacted the reserve components even more severely than the active duty force.” The National Guard and Reserves “have been shrinking since 2020.”
“Should a true national security emergency arise, America lacks the ability to mobilize as Israel and Russia have done.” The worst part is that “even if more Americans could be encouraged to sign up, they may not be able to serve.” Before COVID, “fewer than three in 10 Americans in the prime recruiting demographic — ages 17 to 24 — were eligible to serve in uniform.” Those were the good old days. It’s a lot worse now.
“Endemic youth obesity, record levels of physical unfitness, mental health issues exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, and drug use have rendered the vast majority of young Americans ineligible for military service.” The military also uses a computer program to mine the medical records of all recruits. “Genesis combs through civilian health records and automatically flags anything that runs afoul of the military’s medical standards.” It keeps the recruiters honest though, the Pentagon relates, trying to keep things on the bright side.
