America isn’t ready for another war — because it doesn’t have the troops

Coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza is mostly dominated by talk of weapons. Reporters and analysts focus on suicide drones, on shell deficits, on targeting algorithms. But for all the attention devoted to modern weapons and munitions, both conflicts are proving that modern war still comes down to people.

In Ukraine, battlefield deaths on both sides were estimated to number more than 200,000 by the fall of 2023. Though US 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. 

At the same time, it was a partial mobilization of more than 300,000 troops that stabilized Russia’s lines and prevented a potential collapse in late 2022. Today, the war has settled into an attritional slugfest, with both sides desperate to keep the flow of new recruits going, to the point where ranks have opened to older men, women, and convicts.

The situation is much the same in the Middle East. On October 7, Israel’s heavily automated Gaza perimeter was breached by well-trained but low-tech Hamas terrorists. The attack was eventually repulsed by conscript soldiers and armed volunteers — even in the “start-up nation” that prides itself on its technological prowess, security depends first and foremost on people. Similar to the Russian mobilization before the invasion of Ukraine, the immediate calling up of 360,000 reservists enabled Israel to conduct its campaign against Hamas and deter other non-state foes in the West Bank and Lebanon.

America did away with the draft 51 years ago, waging its many wars and interventions since with the All-Volunteer Force (AVF). But “all-volunteer” is a misnomer. Americans aren’t lining up to serve, and the AVF is really an all-recruited force. Its previous annual recruitment of about 150,000 mostly young Americans, who are individually located, pitched, and incentivized to serve, comes at considerable effort and expense.

The United States got through two foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the AVF — though neither war was a victory. A war with Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea 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. But as crises overseas multiply, the immediate existential threat to the AVF, and ultimately to US security, is at home: there aren’t enough Americans willing and able to fill the military’s ranks.

Not enough soldiers

Three of America’s four major military services failed to recruit enough servicemembers in 2023. The Army has failed to meet its manpower goals for the last two years and missed its 2023 target by 10,000 soldiers, a 20 percent shortfall. Today, the active-duty Army stands at 445,000 soldiers, 41,000 fewer than in 2021 and the smallest it has been since 1940.

The Navy and Air Force missed their recruiting goals too, the Navy failing across the board. The Marine Corps was the only service to achieve its targets (not counting the tiny Space Force). But the Marines’ success is partially attributable to significant force structure cuts as part of its Force Design 2030 overhaul. As a result, Marine recruiters have nearly 19,000 fewer active duty and selected reserve slots to fill today than they did as recently as 2020.

A decrease in the size of the active force might be less worrying if a large reserve pool could be mobilized in the event of a major war or national emergency. But 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. Last year, the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve each missed their recruiting targets by 30 percent. The Army Reserve had just 9,319 enlistees after aiming to recruit 14,650 new soldiers. Numbers for the Navy Reserve were just as bad — the service missed its enlisted and officer targets by 35 and 40 percent, respectively.

Should a true national security emergency arise, America lacks the ability to mobilize as Israel and Russia have done. The Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) — comprising former active duty or selected reserve personnel who could be reactivated by the Secretary of Defense during wartime or a national emergency — is designed to act as a bridge from the AVF to a revived draft. Almost forgotten even by servicemembers, the IRR earned brief notoriety when some servicemembers were “stop-lossed” during the Iraq War — pulled from the IRR and returned to active duty involuntarily, usually to deploy again.

Today, there are just over 264,000 servicemembers in the entire IRR. The Army’s IRR pool has shrunk from 700,000 in 1973 to 76,000 in 2023. Forget building new units in wartime: the IRR is now incapable of even providing sufficient casualty replacements for losses from the first battles of a high-intensity war.

And even if more Americans could be encouraged to sign up, they may not be able to serve. Before Covid, fewer than 3 in 10 Americans in the prime recruiting demographic — ages 17 to 24 — were eligible to serve in uniform. Those numbers have shrunk further since the pandemic began. Only 23 percent of young Americans are qualified to enlist without a waiver, based on the most recent data. 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. Scores on the ASVAB — the military’s standardized exam for recruits, which tests aptitude for service — plummeted during the pandemic.

The introduction of a new military health system in 2022, MHS Genesis, has also hamstrung recruiting. Recruits used to be able to omit mention of disqualifying factors like years-old sports injuries, the use of an inhaler, or mental health counseling — often after some coaching from recruiters. But Genesis combs through civilian health records and automatically flags anything that runs afoul of the military’s medical standards. While Genesis has undoubtedly hurt recruiters’ ability to meet their quotas, it has done so by finally holding the AVF to its own enlistment standards.

An Army of none?

Even among those who actually remain eligible to serve, far fewer have any apparent desire to do so. Fewer than 10 percent of Americans aged 16 to 21 say they would seriously consider signing up, according to a 2022 poll from the Pentagon’s Office of People Analytics. Those interested in serving are largely motivated by material factors. Respondents cited pay, college tuition aid, travel opportunities, health benefits, and acquiring career skills as the top five reasons for considering military service. Only 24 percent said they would join the military out of a sense of pride or honor.

Though the US population has increased by more than 50 percent since the end of the draft, the AVF has come to rely on a smaller and smaller share of the nation. In the all-recruited force, it is military families that have inexorably become the primary providers of new recruits. Nearly 80 percent of recent Army enlistees have a veteran in their family — for almost 30 percent, it’s a parent. In the half-century since the AVF’s birth, the US military has become a family business.

This entrenchment of a “warrior caste” presents a long-term danger to democracy: a citizenry disconnected from its military can become indifferent to the missions it performs. Civilian oversight and accountability suffer when the military is insulated from public scrutiny and understanding. The percentage of veterans in Congress has declined precipitously in the 50 years of the AVF’s existence. But the immediate danger is more concrete. Should the majority of military families decide the nation is unworthy of their children’s service, as may already be happening, the AVF will become unsustainable.

The worst of the recruiting crisis is still to come. American birth rates plummeted after the 2008 financial crisis: a “baby bust” saw almost 2.3 million fewer children born between 2008 and 2013 than had been projected before the crisis. The number of American 18-year-olds is set to peak in 2025 at 9.4 million, before dropping to about 8 million by 2029. With another baby bust during the Covid pandemic, the following generation will likely be even smaller.

Potential solutions to the recruiting crisis depend on one’s diagnosis: in the language of the marketplace, is the AVF a bad product or just badly pitched?

Those who argue that the recruiting crisis is a marketing failure point to young Americans’ general ignorance of basic facts of military life. Forty-nine percent of Gen Zers in a 2022 Army-commissioned survey thought that American soldiers received no personal time off and no vacation days. Army surveys of Americans aged 16 to 28 conducted in 2022 revealed that the top two reasons this cohort wouldn’t consider serving were fear of death and concerns about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The reality is that less than 15 percent of enlisted military personnel are assigned a combat role, and far fewer ever find themselves in a firefight. Despite the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, fewer American servicemembers are facing potential combat missions now than at any time since 9/11.

A record dented by two decades of defeat has undermined the US military’s self-anointed status as the “finest fighting force the world has ever known,” leading to a significant decline in public trust. Though some might call the US military “America’s team,” it hasn’t won a game since Desert Storm, before most of its current members were born. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that 58 and 64 percent of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, say those conflicts were not worth fighting. A political horseshoe effect has helped cement this: both leftists and right-wingers publicly advocate for refusing to fight what they call unnecessary, unwinnable wars, with an especially sharp decline in enlistments by white men and women.

Policymakers’ refusal to cut missions and offload defense burdens to wealthy allies greatly exacerbates the strain on the All-Volunteer Force. Though the United States is not at war, its military remains highly active, with constant deployments to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Some branches and military communities, like armor, air defense, and aircraft carriers, struggle to maintain even a 2-1 ratio of “dwell to deploy” (the Pentagon’s desired ratio is three years at home for every year overseas). This unsustainable pace burns out soldiers, erodes morale, and helps fuel an epidemic of military suicides.

Some more mundane elements of the military lifestyle are also contributing to rising disillusion within the warrior caste. Poor on-base housing, potential food insecurity, and a high spousal unemployment rate are unappealing for young Americans looking to start their careers and families. Relocation for servicemembers, which occurs every 2.5 years on average, puts additional stress on families and runs counter to the desire for stability people generally gain as they age. And the strong post-Covid labor market has limited the economic appeal of military employment.

Dissatisfaction with the product isn’t just limited to military families. Gen Z, which already constitutes about 40 percent of military personnel, views serving in the armed forces through a different lens than the millennials who came before them (and who made up the majority of the fighting force in Iraq and Afghanistan). This “network generation” is immersed in the digital world, distrustful of institutional authority, and often viewed as psychologically fragile. However you view Gen Z, accommodating them is a tall order for a military that prioritizes hierarchy, physical and mental fortitude, and self-sacrifice.

The “D” word

Whether the recruiting crisis is primarily a problem of product or pitch, one thing should be increasingly clear: going back to the standard AVF recruiting playbook — signing bonuses, waivers for substandard fitness or education, new slogans, and expensive ad campaigns — is unlikely to solve the problem.

To attract civilians in highly specialized and increasingly vital fields like cyber operations, some analysts have proposed that the US military relax its standards to acquire more technically skilled recruits. But such a move risks undermining the universal standards that undergird the military’s egalitarianism and common culture — critical advantages in the crucible of combat. And despite the drones and the tech, modern war still requires soldiers who can endure the physical demands of high-intensity combat. As seen in Ukraine, the deployment of mobile surveillance systems in combination with mass precision strikes require constant battlefield mobility merely to survive. Combat is still a young man’s game.

So what can be done? The Army has taken a dramatic step toward increasing its recruiting pool by standing up the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, a remedial program for motivated recruits who nonetheless fail to meet initial entry standards. Future Soldier Prep will take in nearly 20,000 recruits this year, which may enable the Army to make its lower recruiting mission. But the long-term potential and performance of soldiers who require that much additional help just to make initial standards is unknown.

A longer-term solution could involve minimizing the friction of moving between civilian life, reserve service, and active duty service — a concept known as “permeability.” Flanked by oceans and friendly neighbors, America has the luxury of time for mobilizing its armed forces, even in an age of intercontinental missiles. Such efforts could ensure both broader access to talented potential servicemen and women who know they’ll be able to better balance civilian and military life, and a far better understanding of and appreciation for military service. 

But breaking down the existing barriers to both entering and leaving service strikes at the heart of the US military’s view of itself as a profession, not a part-time job. Even limited moves toward lateral entry — allowing civilians in specialist fields like cyber operations to enter the military at a mid-career level — for exceptional individuals have yet to be embraced by the services.

Perhaps a serious national security threat will motivate more Americans to join the military. But even that might not be enough: the massive militaries that fought existential conflicts like the American Civil War and World War II were filled not merely with volunteers, but millions of conscripts. Even Ukraine, currently in a fight for national survival, is having trouble enlisting sufficient soldiers. Having been burned by massive threat inflation over terrorism in the post-9/11 era, Americans may be understandably skeptical of the gravity of the Russian or Chinese threat to the United States.

Finally, there is the “D” word: the draft. There has been no serious attempt to restore American military conscription since compulsory military service ended in 1973. But several key American allies, including South Korea and the new NATO members Finland and Sweden, still man their militaries with partial or universal conscription. While America is unlikely to ever again need the 12 million servicemen and women it had in 1945, clearly failing recruiting efforts may at least prompt a reexamination of compulsory service.

Absent a draft or major structural reform to AVF recruiting and retention, the US military will struggle not to shrink. A shrinking force will propel a vicious cycle, as a smaller military carries the same load of overseas deployments. A worsening deployment-to-dwell ratio will hurt retention, as the strain on family life of lengthy deployments becomes intolerable. Lower retention will then necessitate higher recruiting goals, even as exiting troops would serve as walking negative advertisements for American military life.

The recruiting crisis is a greater national security threat to the United States than the wars that currently dominate the headlines. If there is one lesson America’s leaders should take from the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, it is that troop mobilization and depth are still essential for fighting wars. As both Israel and Ukraine have learned, no amount of high-tech wizardry has changed this enduring reality of warfare. Should the United States fail to fix its military recruiting, it will risk losing a great power war — with enormous consequences for all Americans.