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[Geoff Irving and Taylor Quackenbush, Marine Corps veterans and writers for the USNI who focus on national security issues] may 2023, “Three Bold Changes to Improve Military Recruiting”, accessed 6/25/2023, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/may/three-bold-changes-improve-military-recruiting - JR

Three commonly-cited causes of declining recruiting and retention metrics are: 1) mistrust in military officers, 2) the Blended Retirement System (BRS), and 3) a senior officer and political class with a perceived reputation for war mongering. These arguments can be countered with productive policy recommendations to 1) improve military recruiting competence, 2) enhance service member compensation, and 3) reevaluate the military “garrison” lifestyle. Does the American Public Trust Its Military Officers to Lead? In his November 2022 Proceedings article, “Recruiting Requires Bold Changes,” Marine Corps Commandant General David H. Berger cites a 2021 Gallup poll that indicates a decline in public trust of military officers. Other military commentators were quick to parrot this quote as proof of the public’s lack of trust. For example, one commentator attributed the perceived decline in the trust of military officers to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. However, when viewed in its entirety, the cited Gallup poll does not reflect the pessimistic picture that many paint. The Gallup poll reveals that military officers, as a profession, have one of the highest rates of public trust among the U.S. population. Military officers are ranked the fifth-most honest and ethical profession, with a 61 percent positive sentiment. For reference, doctors, regarded as the second-most honest and ethical profession, boast 68 percent positive sentiment. No profession holds a candle to nurses, who garner a well-deserved 81 percent favorable rating. Most commentators gloss over these details and assume a direct causation between declining trust in military officers and the challenges present in recruiting American youth to the armed services. It is unlikely that young Americans considering military service place a high emphasis on the trustworthiness of the Joint Chiefs when deciding whether to join the armed forces. Perhaps this lack of trustworthiness is a feature among the active-duty population, thus influencing retention rates, and through second-order effects, recruiting. Many service members may be frustrated with the Joint Staff because of the failures of the Afghanistan withdrawal, the drama of political changes in the military, and war weariness following two decades at war in the Middle East. However, leaders cannot spend their time chasing the ghosts of the past. Ultimately, trust is afforded to leaders who take action. What they can do, as General Berger addresses in his article, is attack contemporary challenges with new plans. To that end, what new plan can address the challenge of dwindling recruitment? The U.S. military should consolidate redundant recruiting organizations from the separate services into a joint recruiting force that could tailor solutions to individual applicants and distribute expertise and excellence across the six branches. At present, each military branch maintains their own recruiting organizations. These recruiters compete for the same dwindling pool of applicants but recruits are ultimately subjected to the same statutory qualifications for service and funneled through the same Military Entrance Processing Stations. It would be more efficient if each recruiter in a joint recruiting force were trained to understand opportunities in each service and to match those opportunities with individual applicants. A joint recruiting force would promote collaboration over competition. By eliminating redundancies, the military services could allocate cost savings toward increased community outreach, improved marketing, and other innovative and experimental recruiting programs. This approach would require humility from senior military leaders as each branch takes pride in its respective identity and seeks to control that identity through its recruiting branches. Radical consolidation of recruiting is an example of a plan that, if well implemented, could prove that senior military leaders can respond to challenges in novel and creative ways. Proving competence is the best cure for a perceived lack of public trust. How Can the United States Improve Service Member Compensation? Service member compensation is another frequent topic in military recruitment and retention discourse. The Blended Retirement System (BRS) is often blamed as a central cause of recruitment and retention struggles. However, the way BRS works is often misstated. For context, BRS was implemented in 2018 and reduced military service members’ unvested interest in a defined retirement benefit plan (referred to as a pension hereafter) from 2.5 percent to 2 percent per year. Under BRS, a military member earns a 2 percent interest in their pension every year they serve. If they serve for 20 years, they will receive 40 percent of their ending salary every year for the rest of their life. Detractors cite BRS’s elimination of a penalty for military members who leave midcareer as contributing to falling retention rates. The “penalty” is the unvested interest in a future pension a service member loses if they leave before retirement. However, the penalty of leaving midcareer still exists, just at 2 percent per year instead of 2.5 percent. Those who argue that no penalty exists are wrong. Here’s a helpful fact sheet for more information on BRS. Changes to compensation are not a bad idea for improving retention and recruiting, and layering desirability-based incentives into duty station assignments would be a good start. Some duty stations are objectively desirable while others are not. For example, at desirable stations such as Camp Pendleton, California, geographic-based compensation such as basic allowance for housing (BAH) and basic allowance for subsistence are high, and beaches and mountains are a short drive away. Meanwhile, those stationed in Twentynine Palms, California, or Fort Sill, Oklahoma, are paid less to live somewhere less desirable. Why not reward these service members with an inverse-BAH bonus or stipend to acknowledge this disparity? Alternatively, instituting a market-based bidding system in which those who are moving and gaining commands can vie for duty-station placements would be a more cost-effective (although potentially systems- and management-intensive) option. How Can the Military Prepare for War during Peacetime? Today’s U.S. military is the greatest in history in terms of capability, manpower, and technology. Joining the military can imbue people with a sense of purpose and belonging. However, when time in garrison is not fulfilling, service members can experience a vacuum of purpose. The Coast Guard saves lives and interdicts drugs and arms traffic daily, but the other military branches must wait and train for the next conflict. Some will spend their entire careers without doing their jobs in a live setting. How can we satisfy the natural desire to do what military members continually train to do without beating the war drum? And how can the United States maintain and retain an effective fighting force without burning its service members out in the pursuit of constant readiness? When training in the field, the military is at war. The military should measure success against a realistic opposing force and track metrics of success across the joint force to foster friendly competition. Leaning on new technologies, units can be assessed based less on notional games and more on quantifiable metrics. When in garrison, the military should be preparing to go to war, but doing so efficiently, guarding selfishly its most precious resource—service members’ time. Service members, especially the youngest cohort, can and should receive rest. Above all, there must be a focus on improving warfighting competence. Any activity, tradition, or parade that detracts from this effort must be scrutinized and evaluated. How many times has a young Marine counted the days to their end of active service while listening to an officer stumble though a change of command speech? General Berger alludes to these ideas when he references automating administrative tasks, and the military should expand this concept across other functions such as maintenance, garrison security, even duty. Focus Less on Crisis Language and More on Bold Solutions A recent Heritage Foundation poll found that 93 percent of service members trust the U.S. military a good or great deal. The Gallup poll cited earlier shows that military officers are the fifth-most trusted profession among the U.S. population. The U.S. military is not imploding because of a crisis of confidence, despite much of the media narrative. When a product does not sell, it is not always the sales team’s fault. Sometimes, they just need to make the product better. By addressing both the “sales” force (a combined joint force recruiting team) as well as enhancing the “product” (improving compensation and the lived experience of active-duty members), the U.S. military can begin to tackle its recruitment and retention problems. Articles with inflammatory, eye-catching titles make for easy clickbait, but answering General Berger’s call for bold changes is more constructive and may guide the military and recruiting force to success in the next generation.

So what is actually happening, and what can be done to have a real effect? The short answer is that the Army faces a combination of challenges beyond its control that link to problems of its own making. Fortunately, each has a ready set of responses in three areas. First is to widen a shrinking pool. Put directly, less young Americans are eligible to serve than in the past, due to changing demographics, education performance, and especially health (weight, behavioral health, and other medical conditions). Only 23% of American youth fully meet the Army’s eligibility requirements, compared to 29% in the previous years. Obviously, long-term efforts to aid such social problems would be helpful, yet the Pentagon has multiple ways to face this better in the here and now. The first is that the requirements are not uniform across the U.S. military; the Army and its peers are drawing from the same pool, but with different standards. According to our discussions with Lieut. Colonel Felichia Brooks, a Battalion Commander with the Baltimore Recruiting Command, the organization has lost multiple applicants to other services because of these differences. Fixing these enlistment eligibility disparities should be on the action list. The second is to recognize that no matter how standards are applied, the problem of societal demographic and health aren’t going away. As such, more is required to aid would-be recruits to meet these standards. For example, a pilot program called the Future Soldier Preparatory Course has met with great success at Fort Jackson in South Carolina to help overcome obstacles to military duty related to academic performance and physical health barriers. Such programs could be scaled more widely. It would also be valuable to widen the pool by updating outdated policies that are presently excluding potential recruits. Here there are also two ready responses. Regulation (AR) 600-85 of the Army Marijuana and the Army’s Substance Abuse Program penalizes would-be recruits for using a substance now accepted in more than 20 states and the District of Columbia. It could be modified to reflect that if marijuana use is permissible in the state where the applicant enlists, then the Army must consider the laws of that state. It is upon enlistment, not before, that recruits should be limited to Army’s Drug and Alcohol policies. Finally, the Army must change to reflect the new American family. There are over 11 million single parent households in the U.S. now, of whom a quarter face joblessness or economic challenges. And yet, under current Army policy, single parents must give up guardianship of their children for their initial enlistment. The resulting duration could be anywhere between two years to a lengthy six years, which creates an obvious barrier to entry for single parents. Yet, the Army has successfully navigated having single parents inside the force for decades. At last count, in 2021, there were 119,186 single parents successfully serving in the U.S. military, nearly half of them in the Army. The force should therefore explore adjusting its current policy to allow recruits to regain custody of their children within an earlier stage of their service, such as 12 to 18 months on active duty. The second area of shift needed is to reform the Army’s own systems and bureaucracy, to reduce anything hampering the recruiting process. Too many barriers are thrown up for those showing interest in the force, something all the worse among a generation that experiences quick responses in so many other parts of their lives. For instance, the Army recently put into place a program called GENESIS, an automated and integrated medical information system that aids in managing and providing health care. Although it has the laudable goal of performing a more thorough medical screening of applicants and boosting medical screening efficiency, it has caused significant processing delays for applicants. These can extend sometimes as long as a year, according to Brooks, resulting in many applicants choosing an alternative military service than the Army or even a civilian job that offers a much quicker on-ramp. A recruit for the Army shouldn’t be lost because of protracted red tape and a burdensome documentation process. To decrease medical delays, the Army must consider authorizing the United States Military Entrance Processing Command permission to hire more medical personnel to review and handle medical waivers to reduce delays. The final track is to build up the awareness and attraction of the Army. As Major General Alex Fink, chief of the Army’s Enterprise Marketing team, noted after the survey results came out, the issue for today’s youth wasn’t vaccines or wokeness, but they “just don’t see the Army as something that’s relevant.” In this public outreach effort, though, Army recruitment has been behind the eightball in its branding. When it first shifted from a draft to a professional force, the Army messaged “Be All You Can Be.” It was considered one of the best slogans in not just the history of military recruiting, but all of advertising. In 2001, though, the Army jettisoned the tried and true and spent the next two decades cycling through new mottos and campaigns, from “Army Strong” and “Army of One” to the present “What’s Your Warrior?” The current campaign was actually adapted in 2018 in a deliberate attempt by Army leaders to find a new slogan they hoped would be “as powerful as Be All You Can Be.” Unfortunately, the video-game-derived question has failed to resonate both with youth it targeted and the equally important set of parents, coaches, and teachers who advise them. As a result, this year, the Army will debut a new marketing initiative. It turns out the best course of action was to return to the slogan “Be All You Can Be.” The force is going back to the slogan because it better “conveys the possibilities that await a new Army recruit,” as Fink explains. A better message, though, will only go so far. Less than 1% of the population is a military member; hence, most Americans do not have personal connections to understand Army life and its opportunities (which the survey data shows is more of a barrier). Thus, the Army must step up its community outreach activities at every command. As Wormuth and McConville put it, “We are in a war for talent, and it will take all of our people — troops from all components, families, Army civilians, and soldiers for life — to fight and win this war.” This recruiting “war” will only be won if actual organizational incentives and leader evaluations are changed to reflect the force’s needs. We must turn outreach into a real whole-of-force effort, with the inducements to match. An example start is a pilot program that mirrors how civilian industry recruits; successful companies don’t just rely on their HR department in a job search, but also enlist their own employees’ peer networks. The new Army pilot similarly rewards enlisted soldiers who personally aid recruiting, by providing them with a promotion if their referral draws another soldier into the force. For all the controversy that surrounds the Army’s recruiting shortfall, its answers lie in reflecting the world we live in. The successful force of tomorrow will be built not from the angry debate but from sound policy. And that may be the best outcome of all.

Here are several actions the military services — and the nation as a whole — should be undertaking now to help reverse these trends.

Improving Eligibility

Legislation drafted by a group of U.S. senators aims to alleviate the military’s ongoing woes in attracting new members by allowing recruiters greater access to high schools and colleges.

Introduced Wednesday, the Military Service Promotion Act would allow branches of the service to obtain college student dropout data, require the Pentagon to examine ways to prep possible recruits better for physical fitness and aptitude tests and force schools to let recruiters attend career fairs and similar events.

Independent Women’s Voice, which fights to enhance people’s freedom, opportunities, and well-being, supports the Military Service Promotion Act of 2023, sponsored by Senators Mitt Romney, Tom Cotton, and Angus King.

The bill is intended to address what Senator Romney has rightly identified as "the largest recruitment crisis in 50 years," threatening our national security and the readiness of our Armed Forces.

In addition to South Korea, bilateral alliances with other countries — such as Japan, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines, along with partner nations — provides increased security in the region in the face of aggressive behavior from China. Milley noted that there are nearly 250,000 troops deployed in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America, combating terrorism and working with allies and partners.

"Operational readiness rates are higher now than they've been in many years. Currently, 60% of our active force is at the highest state of readiness and could deploy to combat in less than 30 days, well exceeding the minimum of the one-third standard that we've always had. Ten percent of our force could deploy in less than 96 hours. The United States military is ready," he said.

The surest way to prevent war is to be prepared to win one. Doing so requires a competitive approach to force development and a consistent, multiyear investment to restore warfighting readiness and field a lethal force. The size of our force matters. The Nation must field sufficient, capable forces to defeat enemies and achieve sustainable outcomes that protect the American people and our vital interests. Our aim is a Joint Force that possesses decisive advantages for any likely conflict, while remaining proficient across the entire spectrum of conflict. Prioritize preparedness for war. Achieving peace through strength requires the Joint Force to deter conflict through preparedness for war. During normal day-to-day operations, the Joint Force will sustainably compete to: deter aggression in three key regions—the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and Middle East; degrade terrorist and WMD threats; and defend U.S. interests from challenges below the level of armed conflict. In wartime, the fully mobilized Joint Force will be capable of: defeating aggression by a major power; deterring opportunistic aggression elsewhere; and disrupting imminent terrorist and WMD threats. During peace or in war, the Joint Force will deter nuclear and non-nuclear strategic attacks and defend the homeland. To support these missions, the Joint Force must gain and maintain information superiority; and develop, strengthen, and sustain U.S. security relationships. Modernize key capabilities. We cannot expect success fighting tomorrow’s conflicts with yesterday’s weapons or equipment. To address the scope and pace of our competitors’ and adversaries’ ambitions and capabilities, we must invest in modernization of key capabilities through sustained, predictable budgets. Our backlog of deferred readiness, procurement, and modernization requirements has grown in the last decade and a half and can no longer be ignored. We will make targeted, disciplined increases in personnel and platforms to meet key capability and capacity needs. The 2018 National Defense Strategy underpins our planned fiscal year 2019-2023 budgets, accelerating our modernization programs and devoting additional resources in a sustained effort to solidify our competitive advantage. Nuclear forces. The Department will modernize the nuclear triad—including nuclear command, control, and communications, and supporting infrastructure. Modernization of the nuclear force includes developing options to counter competitors’ coercive strategies, predicated on the threatened use of nuclear or strategic non-nuclear attacks. Space and cyberspace as warfighting domains. The Department will prioritize investments in resilience, reconstitution, and operations to assure our space capabilities. We will also invest in cyber defense, resilience, and the continued integration of cyber capabilities into the full spectrum of military operations. Command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). Investments will prioritize developing resilient, survivable, federated networks and information ecosystems from the tactical level up to strategic planning. Investments will also prioritize capabilities to gain and exploit information, deny competitors those same advantages, and enable us to provide attribution while defending against and holding accountable state or non-state actors during cyberattacks. Missile defense. Investments will focus on layered missile defenses and disruptive capabilities for both theater missile threats and North Korean ballistic missile threats. Joint lethality in contested environments. The Joint Force must be able to strike diverse targets inside adversary air and missile defense networks to destroy mobile power-projection platforms. This will include capabilities to enhance close combat lethality in complex terrain. Forward force maneuver and posture resilience. Investments will prioritize ground, air, sea, and space forces that can deploy, survive, operate, maneuver, and regenerate in all domains while under attack. Transitioning from large, centralized, unhardened infrastructure to smaller, dispersed, resilient, adaptive basing that include active and passive defenses will also be prioritized. Advanced autonomous systems. The Department will invest broadly in military application of autonomy, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, including rapid application of commercial breakthroughs, to gain competitive military advantages. Resilient and agile logistics. Investments will prioritize prepositioned forward stocks and munitions, strategic mobility assets, partner and allied support, as well as non-commercially dependent distributed logistics and maintenance to ensure logistics sustainment while under persistent multi-domain attack.

The U.S. military also responds to humanitarian crises, including the recent hurricanes that devastated Puerto Rico. Responding to such emergencies is expected to become more challenging as climate change contributes to more natural disasters, potentially sparking international conflicts over fresh water, food and other resources.14

Defense spending in recent years peaked in fiscal 2010 at $691 billion, and Trump's proposal would not bring it up to that level. Some of the country's potential adversaries, meanwhile, have stepped up their military outlays and activities.15

Although we know that the future may hold significant dangers, they remain ill defined, creating a challenging analytical problem for national security policymakers. History can provide useful insights into how to approach strategic uncertainty. We know we cannot “get it entirely right.” Therefore, we should strive not to get it so far wrong that we suffer unacceptable consequences when hit by unexpected threats. Under conditions of uncertainty, a hedging strategy that provides a range of options makes the most sense. Historically, maintaining effective balance among the different dimensions of readiness and having some ready capability to deal with a wide range of potential threats have been an effective way to hedge strategic bets. In times of defense budgetary retrenchment, combat readiness of the armed forces often becomes one of the first casualties of fiscal tightening. This was particularly true of the years between World War I and World War II, when the Great Depression and isolationism made military preparedness a very low national priority. Despite the threatening war clouds rapidly expanding in Asia and Europe, the U.S. was woefully unprepared for global conflict. The shock of Pearl Harbor mobilized both the industrial capability and the moral determination to overcome the early, disastrous reversals in the Pacific and tactical defeats in North Africa. Once focused on military production, the U.S. economy rapidly produced overwhelming quantities of ships, aircraft, tanks, ammunition, and other matériel needed for America to become the “Arsenal of Democracy.” However, U.S. forces quickly learned that training for combat, particularly in developing military leaders, was just as complex and demanding.

(Alan, “Shield & Sword: The Case for Military Deterrence”, 12/31/15, , Providence Magazine)

Surely, the same principle applies in the realm of nations. Our world teems with violent regimes and vicious [humans]. And something precious—our notion of peace, sovereignty, liberty, civilization itself—sits exposed to all that danger. In a world where might makes right, the only thing that keeps the peace, defends our sovereignty and liberty, and upholds civilization is the willingness to use our resources to keep the dangers at bay. Yet too many policymakers disregard the wisdom of military deterrence, and too many people of faith forget that the aim of deterrence is, by definition, to prevent wars, not start them. Some people of faith oppose the threat of military force, let alone the use of military force, because of Christ’s message of peace. This is understandable in the abstract, but we must keep in mind two truths. First, governments are held to a different standard than individuals, and hence are expected to do certain things individuals aren’t expected to do—and arguably shouldn’t do certain things individuals should do. For example, a government that turned the other cheek when attacked would be conquered by its foes, leaving countless innocents defenseless. A government that put away the sword—that neglected its defenses—would invite aggression, thus jeopardizing its people. Second, all uses of force are not the same. The sheriff who uses force to apprehend a murderer is decidedly different from the criminal who uses force to commit a murder. The policemen posted outside a sporting event to deter violence are decidedly different from those who plot violence. Moral relativism is anything but a virtue. Some lament the fact that we live in such a violent world, but that’s precisely the point. Because we live in a violent world, governments must take steps to deter those who can be deterred—and neutralize those who cannot. In this regard, it pays to recall that Jesus had sterner words for scholars and scribes than He did for soldiers. In fact, when a centurion asked Jesus for help, He didn’t admonish the military commander to put down his sword. Instead, He commended him for his faith.[i] “Even in the Gospels,” soldier-scholar Ralph Peters reminds us, “it is assumed that soldiers are, however regrettably, necessary.”[ii] They are necessary not only for waging war but, preferably, for maintaining peace. It’s a paradoxical truth that military readiness can keep the peace. The Romans had a phrase for it: Si vis pacem, para bellum. “If you wish for peace, prepare for war.” President George Washington put it more genteelly: “There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet an enemy.” Or, in the same way, “We infinitely desire peace,” President Theodore Roosevelt declared. “And the surest way of obtaining it is to show that we are not afraid of war.” After the West gambled civilization’s very existence in the 1920s and 1930s on hopes that war could somehow be outlawed, the men who crafted the blueprint for waging the Cold War returned to peace through strength. Winston Churchill proposed “defense through deterrents.” President Harry Truman called NATO “an integrated international force whose object is to maintain peace through strength…we devoutly pray that our present course of action will succeed and maintain peace without war.”[iii] President Dwight Eisenhower explained, “Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk its own destruction.” President John Kennedy vowed to “strengthen our military power to the point where no aggressor will dare attack.” And President Ronald Reagan steered the Cold War to a peaceful end by noting, “None of the four wars in my lifetime came about because we were too strong.” Reagan also argued, “Our military strength is a prerequisite for peace.”[iv] Even so, arms alone aren’t enough to deter war. After all, the great powers were armed to the teeth in 1914. But since they weren’t clear about their intentions and treaty commitments, a small crisis on the fringes of Europe mushroomed into a global war. Neither is clarity alone enough to deter war. After all, President Woodrow Wilson’s admonitions to the Kaiser were clear, but America lacked the military strength at the onset of war to make those words matter and thus deter German aggression. In other words, America was unable to deter. “The purpose of a deterrence force is to create a set of conditions that would cause an adversary to conclude that the cost of any particular act against the United States of America or her allies is far higher than the potential benefit of that act,” explains Gen. Kevin Chilton, former commander of U.S. Strategic Command. It is a “cost-benefit calculus.”[v] So, given the anemic state of America’s military before 1917, the Kaiser calculated that the benefits of attacking U.S. ships and trying to lure Mexico into an alliance outweighed the costs. That proved to be a grave miscalculation. In order for the adversary not to miscalculate, a few factors must hold. First, consequences must be clear, which was not the case on the eve of World War I. Critics of deterrence often cite World War I to argue that arms races trigger wars. But if it were that simple, then a) there wouldn’t have been a World War II, since the Allies allowed their arsenals to atrophy after 1918, and b) there would have been a World War III, since Washington and Moscow engaged in an unprecedented arms race. The reality is that miscalculation lit the fuse of World War I. The antidote, as alluded to above, is strength plus clarity. A second important factor to avoid miscalculation: The adversary must be rational, which means it can grasp and fear consequences. Fear is an essential ingredient of deterrence. It pays to recall that deterrence comes from the Latin dēterreō: “to frighten off.”[vi] Of course, as Churchill conceded, “The deterrent does not cover the case of lunatics.”[vii] Mass-murderers masquerading as holy men and death-wish dictators may be immune from deterrence. (The secondary benefit of the peace-through-strength model is that it equips those who embrace it with the capacity to defeat these sorts of enemies rapidly and return to the status quo ante.) Third, the consequences of military confrontation must be credible and tangible, which was the case during most of the Cold War. Not only did Washington and Moscow construct vast military arsenals to deter one another; they were clear about their treaty commitments and about the consequences of any threat to those commitments. Recall how Eisenhower answered Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s boast about the Red Army’s overwhelming conventional advantage in Germany: “If you attack us in Germany,” the steely American commander-in-chief fired back, “there will be nothing conventional about our response.”[viii] Eisenhower’s words were unambiguously clear, and unlike Wilson, he wielded the military strength to give them credibility. Discussing military deterrence in the context of Christianity may seem incongruent to some readers. But for a pair of reasons it is not. First, deterrence is not just a matter of GDPs and geopolitics. In fact, scripture often uses the language of deterrence and preparedness. For example, in the first chapter of Numbers the Lord directs Moses and Aaron to count “all the men in Israel who are twenty years old or more and able to serve in the army.” This ancient selective-service system is a form of military readiness. Similarly, I Chronicles 27 provides detail about the Israelites’ massive standing army: twelve divisions of 24,000 men each. II Chronicles 17 explains the military preparations made by King Jehoshaphat of Judah, a king highly revered for his piety, who built forts, maintained armories in strategically located cities “with large supplies” and fielded an army of more than a million men “armed for battle.” Not surprisingly, “the fear of the Lord fell on all the kingdoms of the lands surrounding Judah, so that they did not go to war against Jehoshaphat.” In the New Testament, Paul writes in Romans 13 that “Rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong…Rulers do not bear the sword for no reason.” Again, this is the language of deterrence. Those who follow the law within a country and who respect codes of conduct between countries have nothing to fear. Those who don’t have much to fear. Likewise, to explain the importance of calculating the costs of following Him, Jesus asks in Luke 14, “What king would go to war against another king without first sitting down to consider whether his 10,000 soldiers could go up against the 20,000 coming against him? And if he didn’t think he could win, he would send a representative to discuss terms of peace while his enemy was still a long way off.” In a sense, both kings are wise—one because he recognizes that he’s outnumbered; the other because he makes sure that he’s not. Put another way, both kings subscribe to peace through strength. Again, as with the Centurion earlier, Jesus could have rebuked the martial character of these kings, but he did not. This is not just description but commendation. We ignore their example at our peril. Secondly, it is not incongruent if we understand military deterrence as a means to prevent great-power war—the kind that kills by the millions, the kind humanity has not endured for seven decades. We know we will not experience the biblical notion of peace—of shalom, peace with harmony and justice—until Christ returns to make all things new. In the interim, in a broken world, the alternatives to peace through strength leave much to be desired: peace through hope, peace through violence, or peace through submission. But these options are inadequate. The sheer destructiveness and totality of great-power war testify that crossing our fingers and hoping for peace is not a Christian option. Wishful thinking, romanticizing reality, is the surest way to invite what Churchill called “temptations to a trial of strength.” Moreover, the likelihood that the next great-power war would involve multiple nuclear-weapons states means that it could end civilization. Therefore, a posture that leaves peer adversaries doubting the West’s capabilities and resolve—thus inviting miscalculation—is not only unsound, but immoral and inhumane—unchristian. “Deterrence of war is more humanitarian than anything,” Gen. Park Yong Ok, a longtime South Korean military official, argues. “If we fail to deter war, a tremendous number of civilians will be killed.”[ix] Peace through violence has been tried throughout history. Pharaoh, Caesar and Genghis Khan, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin and Mao, all attained a kind of peace by employing brutal forms of violence. However, this is not the kind of “peace” under which God’s crowning creation can flourish; neither would the world long tolerate such a scorched-earth “peace.” This option, too, the Christian rejects. Finally, the civilized world could bring about peace simply by not resisting the enemies of civilization—by not blunting the Islamic State’s blitzkrieg of Iraq; by not defending the 38th Parallel; by not standing up to Beijing’s land-grab in the South China Sea or Moscow’s bullying of the Baltics or al-Qaeda’s death creed; by not having armies or, for that matter, police. As Reagan said, “There’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.”[x] The world has tried these alternatives to peace through strength, and the outcomes have been disastrous. After World War I, Western powers disarmed and convinced themselves they had waged the war to end all wars. By 1938, as Churchill concluded after Munich, the Allies had been “reduced…from a position of security so overwhelming and so unchallengeable that we never cared to think about it.”[xi] Like predators in the wilderness, the Axis powers sensed weakness and attacked. In October 1945—not three months after the Missouri steamed into Tokyo Bay—Gen. George Marshall decried the “disintegration not only of the Armed Forces, but apparently…all conception of world responsibility,” warily asking, “Are we already, at this early date, inviting that same international disrespect that prevailed before this war?”[xii] Stalin answered Marshall’s question by gobbling up half of Europe, blockading Berlin, and arming Kim Il-Sung in patient preparation for the invasion of South Korea.[xiii] The U.S. military had taken up positions in Korea in 1945, but withdrew all combat forces in 1949.[xiv] Then, in 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson announced that Japan, Alaska and the Philippines fell within America’s “defensive perimeter.”[xv] Korea didn’t. Stalin noticed. Without a U.S. deterrent in place, Stalin gave Kim a green light to invade. Washington then reversed course and rushed American forces back into Korea, and the Korean peninsula plunged into one of the most ferocious wars in history. The cost of miscalculation in Washington and Moscow: 38,000 Americans, 103,250 South Korean troops, 316,000 North Korean troops, 422,000 Chinese troops and 2 million civilian casualties.[xvi] The North Korean tyranny— now under command of Kim’s grandson—still dreams of conquering South Korea. The difference between 2015 and 1950 is that tens of thousands of battle-ready U.S. and ROK troops are stationed on the border. They’ve been there every day since 1953. The lesson of history is that waging war is far more costly than maintaining a military capable of deterring war. As Washington observed, “Timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it.” Just compare military allocations, as a percentage of GDP, during times of war and times of peace: In the eight years before entering World War I, the United States devoted an average of 0.7 percent of GDP to defense; during the war, U.S. defense spending spiked to 16.1 percent of GDP. In the decade before entering World War II, the United States spent an average of 1.1 percent of GDP on defense; during the war, the U.S. diverted an average of 27 percent of GDP to the military annually. During the Cold War, Washington spent an average of 7 percent of GDP on defense to deter Moscow; it worked. Yet it seems we have forgotten those hard-learned lessons. In his book The World America Made, Robert Kagan explains how “America’s most important role has been to dampen and deter the normal tendencies of other great powers to compete and jostle with one another in ways that historically have led to war.” This role has depended on America’s military might. “There is no better recipe for great-power peace,” Kagan concludes, “than certainty about who holds the upper hand.”[xvii]

One of the few core responsibilities of the federal government mandated by the Constitution of the United States is “to provide for the common defence.”2 Upon commissioning, every American military officer swears an oath to “support and defend” this Constitution.3 Accordingly, the core mission of the American military is to protect and defend our nation. This means deterring potential aggressors and, if deterrence fails, fighting and winning wars. Any consideration of the military’s role and American defense policy must start with that foundational principle. Yet if the need for a strong military begins with the mission to fight and win wars, it does not end there. As the quote from Theodore Roosevelt at the beginning of this essay illustrates, American leaders have long appreciated that a formidable military can produce abundant diplomatic and economic dividends, even—especially—when not wielded in wartime. The United States’ military capability supported our nation’s rise to global greatness over the past century, but this was often because of the increased influence and credibility produced by this capability rather than the overt use of force. Along the way, there developed an American strategic tradition that integrated military strength with diplomatic acumen, economic growth, and international influence.4 It is an historic tradition with an impressive heritage and continuing salience today. Drawing on the historical record, there are many ways beyond the kinetic use of force that a strong national defense bolsters our national power and global influence. A robust defense budget and defense policy also strengthens our nation in manifest other ways. A well-equipped defense enhances our capabilities and influence across virtually all other elements of national power: our economy, our diplomacy, our alliances, and our credibility and influence in the world. Conversely, an underresourced national defense threatens to diminish our national power across all of these other dimensions. A strong national defense is thus indispensable for a peaceful, successful, and free America—even if a shot is never fired. The diplomatic successes in building and maintaining a stable and peaceful international order achieved by the United States over the past century have been enabled by America’s military dominance. Conversely, the calamitous defense budget cuts and corresponding rise of potential peer competitors in the present day are already undermining America’s diplomatic and economic influence. A well-appointed military improves diplomacy with adversaries, strengthens our alliances, signals credibility and resolve, deters aggression, and enhances national morale. Yet this is not to disregard the manifest other dividends that a strong military can pay. There are multiple pathways by which investments in military hard power produce economic benefits. For example, the military’s role in protecting a stable international environment also creates predictable and secure conditions in which economic growth can flourish. The American security umbrella facilitated Western Europe’s postwar reconstruction and economic revival, and Asia’s half-century economic boom has been partly a function of America’s treaty alliances in the region maintaining peace and stability, exemplified by the United States Navy’s Seventh Fleet protecting an open maritime order, freedom of navigation, and secure sea lanes.

You mentioned in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, the earlier 2010 independent panel and the 2014 National Defense Panel that the Congress appointed. I'm sorry to confess that I'm a recidivist. I think I'm the only person who served on all three of those panels. This time, they made me chairman, so, you know, I guess people figured I had to keep doing it until I got it right. But, I would say that, on the 2010 panel, we warned, as you noted, that, absent some activity--and this was before the BCA [Budget Control Act] was passed--that we were headed towards a train wreck. In 2014, we quoted then-Secretary Hagel, who was talking about our declining margin of military advantage over our adversaries and said that the BCA had been a serious strategic misstep that was putting us on a very difficult and dangerous path. In this report, I think it was the unanimous view of all commissioners that we are now on the cusp of a national security emergency because of the waning of our military advantages and the dangers that the current world presents, perhaps the most complex, volatile, and difficult security environment that the United States has ever faced.

Our conclusions were that the National Defense Strategy that Secretary Mattis unveiled earlier this year largely moves us in the right direction. It is nested, appropriately, under a National Security Strategy, both of which stress the primacy of great-power competition, the importance of that competition to the security and prosperity of the United States, as well as the other challenges that we continue to face: an emergent nuclear power in North Korea, a would-be nuclear power in Iran, as well as a lot of the steady-state counterterrorism activity that our military is engaged in around the world.

The U.S. Army is spending more than ever before on technology to replace an aging military infrastructure, from artificial intelligence to new fighting machines moving 1980s tanks off the field of battle. But the Secretary of the U.S. Army says the nation risks falling behind in the race against China if it can’t recruit enough Americans into the service to be trained on how national defense is being remade for future conflicts. “We can develop all of the most high-tech new weapons systems, like we are working on right now, but if we don’t have the kinds of talented motivated individuals to use those weapons systems, we won’t be able to do what we need to do,” U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at the CNBC Work Summit on Wednesday. As the gap between the number of job openings and the number of job seekers has remained wide, the tight labor market has made it increasingly difficult for businesses both big and small to find and hire the right workers. That has also impacted the U.S. Army, which as the largest branch of the U.S. military has a current workforce of 466,400. “We’re competing for talent just like all of the folks in industry are, and the job market is hot right now,” Wormuth told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan on Wednesday at the CNBC event. “Wages have gone up a lot, and that’s great for Americans, but it’s making it harder for us in the Army to compete.” The Army missed its recruitment goal for fiscal 2022 by 25% or 15,000 soldiers, the military service said earlier this month. In July, it also cut its projection for the overall size of its force for this fiscal year by 10,000 and projected that it would likely see another decline in 2023. While the other branches of the military have also had trouble recruiting, none have been as pronounced as the Army’s difficulties, which Wormuth attributed to a variety of factors, including learning losses due to the pandemic and a decline in fitness standards among American youth. “Only about 23% of kids between 16 and 21 are able to meet our standards, and some of that, frankly, is reflective of the problem that we have in our country with obesity,” she said, adding that behavioral health and misconduct are also factors. A second “really hard problem” cited by Wormuth is what the Army calls “propensity to serve,” which is inclination among the population to join the military and serve the country. “Right now, only 9% of young Americans say that they’re interested in joining the military,” she said. Wormuth, who became the first woman to serve as Army Secretary in May, said the service has already started a variety of efforts to boost near-term recruitment. “The Future Soldier Prep Course,” which is effectively a pre-boot camp that helps potential recruits raise their test scores and get more physically fit to meet Army standards, is one. This program “shows a lot of promise,” Wormuth said. However, changing the broader propensity of Americans to serve in the military is a challenge that is a much longer-term. One misperception that has to be overcome is about what employment in the military looks like.

After four decades of the great experiment called the All-Volunteer Army, it has become abundantly clear that recruiting and retaining quality soldiers is a vital prerequisite to the success of America’s Army. While superior American technology, competent training, and efficient logistics are undoubtedly critical aspects of battlefield dominance, it is the Army’s resolute reliance on high quality officers and soldiers that has kept the All-Volunteer Army the world’s premier fighting force. One might assume — given the critical national security role of the Army — that consistent, rigorous metrics are part of the accessions effort for soldiers and commissioned officers. Surprisingly, quality metrics in enlisted accessions are measured and monitored closely, while quality metrics for officer accessions are uneven and oftentimes meaningless. Thus, despite the Army’s focus on achieving cognitive dominance on the future battlefield, officer accession quality standards are inconsistent, sometimes non-existent, and not on par with enlisted accession standards. American enlisted , as defined by the Department of Defense, is measured by two fairly straightforward indicators: a high school diploma and performance on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT). A high school diploma is a metric that, at first blush, appears to characterize academic success. Rather than indicating intellectual ability, however, the high school diploma provides evidence that a potential soldier has the persistence and stamina to complete an enduring challenge. A diploma is merely a proxy for perseverance and motivation. It serves as a signal that candidates have the stick-to-it-iveness required to make it through their basic training and term of enlistment. The AFQT score, on the other hand, reflects aptitude and trainability. The AFQT score points to a potential soldier’s capacity to learn and master new skills. AFQT scores are percentiles that are normalized to the American youth population. A score of 60 represents the 60th percentile and means that 60 percent of the U.S. youth population scored at or below that score. The Army strives to bring in as many high quality soldiers — those having both high school diplomas and AFQT scores above the 50th percentile — as possible. But the Army’s quest for high quality is more than just wanting to populate the ranks with above-average individuals. In fact, the case for quality is remarkably well supported. Empirical studies have shown that high-quality soldiers are more likely than low-quality soldiers to during their time in the Army. Additionally, the evidence repeatedly confirms that high-quality soldiers — those with higher levels of motivation and aptitude — perform better in training and execute complex military tasks more proficiently. Studies show that high-quality soldiers make better , , and If soldier quality is an essential ingredient in fielding a force that will confidently confront the ambiguity and complexity of future war, how is the Army currently doing in accessing high-quality soldiers? For fiscal year 2015, Army recruiting numbers show that 60.2 percent of Army enlisted accessions had a high school diploma and an AFQT score of 50 or better. Although the Army has seen both better and worse years (for example, ), it is important to note two critical aspects of the Army’s focus on high-quality accessions. First, the Army carefully tracks the quality of its enlisted accessions over time. As a result, quality metrics may prompt senior leaders to redirect resources or adjust policies in order to ensure recruit quality. Second, including a normed aptitude score in the definition of quality accounts for societal shifts in aptitude. Essentially, enlisted soldier quality is “inflation-adjusted,” allowing comparisons over time.

The Army is falling far short of its 2022 target end strength, the maximum number of personnel permitted by Congress in each military service. A recent news report noted the Army will “fall about 10,000 soldiers short of its planned end strength for this fiscal year,” and has only achieved 50% of its recruiting goal of 60,000 soldiers with only two and a half months left in this fiscal year. The projected total force for this year is 466,400 soldiers, down from the expected 476,000, and next year it could be as low as 445,000. The Army is already the smallest it has been since 1940, prior to World War II. This is shaping up to be the worst recruiting year for the Army since the advent of the all-volunteer force in 1973, and it’s not a transitory issue. If the recruiting crisis is not turned around soon, it could seriously affect U.S. national defense long-term—at a time when readiness is crucial.

After four decades of the great experiment called the All-Volunteer Army, it has become abundantly clear that recruiting and retaining quality soldiers is a vital prerequisite to the success of America’s Army. While superior American technology, competent training, and efficient logistics are undoubtedly critical aspects of battlefield dominance, it is the Army’s resolute reliance on high quality officers and soldiers that has kept the All-Volunteer Army the world’s premier fighting force. One might assume — given the critical national security role of the Army — that consistent, rigorous metrics are part of the accessions effort for soldiers and commissioned officers. Surprisingly, quality metrics in enlisted accessions are measured and monitored closely, while quality metrics for officer accessions are uneven and oftentimes meaningless. Thus, despite the Army’s focus on achieving cognitive dominance on the future battlefield, officer accession quality standards are inconsistent, sometimes non-existent, and not on par with enlisted accession standards. American enlisted , as defined by the Department of Defense, is measured by two fairly straightforward indicators: a high school diploma and performance on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT). A high school diploma is a metric that, at first blush, appears to characterize academic success. Rather than indicating intellectual ability, however, the high school diploma provides evidence that a potential soldier has the persistence and stamina to complete an enduring challenge. A diploma is merely a proxy for perseverance and motivation. It serves as a signal that candidates have the stick-to-it-iveness required to make it through their basic training and term of enlistment. The AFQT score, on the other hand, reflects aptitude and trainability. The AFQT score points to a potential soldier’s capacity to learn and master new skills. AFQT scores are percentiles that are normalized to the American youth population. A score of 60 represents the 60th percentile and means that 60 percent of the U.S. youth population scored at or below that score. The Army strives to bring in as many high quality soldiers — those having both high school diplomas and AFQT scores above the 50th percentile — as possible. But the Army’s quest for high quality is more than just wanting to populate the ranks with above-average individuals. In fact, the case for quality is remarkably well supported. Empirical studies have shown that high-quality soldiers are more likely than low-quality soldiers to during their time in the Army. Additionally, the evidence repeatedly confirms that high-quality soldiers — those with higher levels of motivation and aptitude — perform better in training and execute complex military tasks more proficiently. Studies show that high-quality soldiers make better , , and If soldier quality is an essential ingredient in fielding a force that will confidently confront the ambiguity and complexity of future war, how is the Army currently doing in accessing high-quality soldiers? For fiscal year 2015, Army recruiting numbers show that 60.2 percent of Army enlisted accessions had a high school diploma and an AFQT score of 50 or better. Although the Army has seen both better and worse years (for example, ), it is important to note two critical aspects of the Army’s focus on high-quality accessions. First, the Army carefully tracks the quality of its enlisted accessions over time. As a result, quality metrics may prompt senior leaders to redirect resources or adjust policies in order to ensure recruit quality. Second, including a normed aptitude score in the definition of quality accounts for societal shifts in aptitude. Essentially, enlisted soldier quality is “inflation-adjusted,” allowing comparisons over time.

And as the AVF approaches its 50th anniversary, this shortage may have serious implications for the United State's ability to defend itself, and meet global challenges. SIERRA: The decline in recruitment seems significant. But trying to put this into perspective, why should we be concerned? Because a lot of Americans feel our military is already way too large. How would this affect an average citizen of the U.S.? BOOT: Yeah. Well, the world is becoming a more dangerous place. I mean, you saw that with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan is growing. And so we're entering this era of great power competition. This is not the immediate post 9/11 era when we are really focused on these low intensity conflicts in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now, we're at much higher risk than we have been in decades of a great power conflict, another World War. That's a scary prospect. But if we're going to deter that conflict, or if the worst happens, if we're going to fight it, you're going to need a substantial force.

Personnel is the most important aspect of readiness, but there is much more. The Army, George said, must focus on warfighting and training for battle in which all domains are contested. The service must support combatant commands with ready formations around the world. "Right now, we have 137,000 soldiers in over 140 countries," the vice chief said. The Army is working with the defense industry to modernize the industrial base to increase productivity and ensure that the service has the stocks to fight when called upon. "We are deterring the pacing challenge, China, by exercising and campaigning across the Indo-Pacific, holding the line in the European theater alongside our NATO partners," George said. The service is also adapting the lessons learned in Ukraine and incorporating new tactics into Army doctrine and training. Franchetti said the Navy's readiness is based on people. "We are committed to improving their quality of service and personal resilience, investing in initiatives such as quality housing and childcare, access to the full continuum of mental health care, improved education and an environment free of sexual harassment and sexual assault," she said. "In this 50th anniversary of the all-volunteer force, we continue to focus on recruiting, retention and reducing gaps in our billets at sea." The admiral also spoke of gains in ship readiness and improvements in maintenance. She told the panel that the fiscal 2024 budget request fully funds public and private ship maintenance, aviation depot maintenance, increases parts and spares and continues to grow the highly skilled public shipyard workforce. Gen. Eric Smith, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, said the service is ready to deter enemies or defeat them should deterrence fail. The Marine Corps is modernizing, and Smith said that effort is bearing fruit, especially regarding training and education. He said the corps is producing "an even more lethal Marine. From our basic rifleman training to our service level training exercises, we are becoming more lethal." Marine training integrates joint and organic fires, improved communications and updated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to sense, track and destroy targets at ranges and complexities never seen before, he said. Readiness is important in relation to the challenges. "Events of the past year remind us that global actors have the capability and intent to challenge peace and stability," Allvin said. "In the case of the pacing challenge the People's Republic of China, the speed at which they are developing advanced capability and capacity should serve as a warning for us to act with a greater sense of urgency. "We must maintain the necessary advantage to deter them from violent pursuit of objectives at odds with our national interests. Your Air Force is laser focused on this task."

The lowest unemployment rate in a decade is good news for Americans, but bad news for an expanding U.S. military. To meet President Donald Trump’s goal for a bigger military, Army recruiters are seeking 80,000 more men and women willing to join the Pentagon’s largest service as deployments continue from Iraq to Afghanistan. That’s 11,500 more soldiers this year than in 2017. Working against the military is the U.S. jobless rate. Initial jobless claims were at the lowest in almost five decades last month. The U.S. economy added 313,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1 percent. Though the Pentagon has managed to meet its recruiting targets in recent years, unemployment rates below 6 percent -- the norm since late 2014 -- are seen as a key factor undermining those efforts. To meet Trump’s goals, the Army has added 400 recruiters to the 9,000-strong force it already employs. Hundreds of millions more dollars are also going toward offering perks to lure recruits. There’s even a “quick-ship bonus” for those willing to go to basic training within a month. People ready to take on hard-to-fill jobs in engineering and cybersecurity can also get more money. “Our recruiters are aware of the difficult environment they’re working in,” Kelli Bland, a spokeswoman for the Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Kentucky, said in an interview. “But it’s not something that we can’t overcome.” Another challenge is lack of knowledge about the military, Bland said. Army research shows about 50 percent of youth know nothing about the military and can’t name most branches. Recruiters are boosting efforts to win over “influencers,” such as high school principals and teachers, who can become advocates for joining. The effort includes “educator tours” to bases, where they can climb into helicopters and talk with pilots to learn of opportunities. Such moves follow decades of studies on how recruitment is affected by the civilian economy, according to Beth Asch, a senior economist at Rand Corp. in Santa Monica, California, who researches military manpower. “When the unemployment rate goes down -- as it has been -- military enlistment goes down as well,” Asch said in an interview. “There’s a positive relationship.”

Soaring unemployment caused by the coronavirus crisis may make recruiting easier for the Army in the year ahead. “We’ve found when unemployment is above 6%, there is a balance of less competition from the civilian labor market and applicants who are more open to considering the Army for a career,” an Army Recruiting Command spokeswoman said.