What if Washington Can’t Attract the Men (and
Women) Necessary To Police the Globe?
by Doug
Bandow Posted on July 04, 2022
https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2022/07/03/what-if-washington-cant-attract-the-men-and-women-necessary-to-police-the-globe/
Russia and Ukraine are at war, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates have spent more than seven years attempting to subject Yemen,
Syria continues to smolder, and Iraq remains a sectarian powder keg. The US is
deeply involved militarily in all these conflicts. Yet worse could come. China
is threatening Taiwan, which enjoys an informal US security guarantee.
The US also is waging an economic war against Venezuela,
Iran, and North Korea, as well as Syria and Russia. Influential interests have urged
Washington to launch kinetic operations against all of them. Find a war or hear
a rumor of war anywhere on earth, and Washington is likely to be involved in
some way.
The foreign policy establishment remains determined to
dominate international events irrespective of the cost of blood and treasure.
As federal spending races wildly ahead, the national debt rockets upward, and
inflation rates, President Joe Biden insists that
"America is better positioned to lead the world than we ever have
been." This delusion is widespread as ivory tower elites share the
late Madeleine Albright’s belief that
they see further and should decide the price paid by others, and that there’s
no use having America’s "superb military" if they don’t use it.
Washington, D.C. remains the eternal imperial city.
Alas for the US, it is not only foreigners who suffer,
often in prodigious numbers,
from Washington’s myriad military misadventures. Americans do too. More than 7000
US personnel and nearly 8000 contractors have died in combat since 9/11. Some
30,000 military personnel and veterans of the "terrorism" wars
committed suicide over the last two decades. Another 52,000 were wounded in combat, but the Watson Institute for
International and Public Affairs contends that the
number harmed by their service "is exponentially larger" since
Pentagon accounting does not include other injuries in theater as well as
conditions diagnosed after personnel return home.
Contra the reigning ideology in Washington, US
military personnel requirements are not immutable. American foreign policy can
be more or less ambitious. The principal cost of the approach chosen is the
military budget. Policymakers should first propose what they want to do in the
world. Second, they should figure out the price of that policy. Third, they
should decide if the benefits are worth the cost.
However, that rarely is how Washington operates. Today
the Blob, as the foreign establishment is called, simply assumes that America
must rule the world. Believing this to be a mandatory duty, a version of "the Mandate of Heaven," as
Chinese emperors called it, Republicans typically propose massive increases in
military outlays, decrying anything less as leaving the world liable to fall
into a new Dark Ages, with communists and terrorists destined to take over
cities across America. Leading Democrats, aside from a few bedraggled progressives,
respond with proposals to spend slightly less, leaving a difference of little
consequence other than to help their posture as peace-loving liberals. Joining
together, Republicans and Democrats together push outlays inexorably upward.
Such has been the case under the Biden administration so
far.
Yet the armed services’ good times may not last
forever. Simply dumping more money into the Pentagon may become impossible as
the Baby Boomer generation retires and entitlement outlays absorb ever more of
the federal budget. If forced to choose between foreign adventures and domestic
benefits, the American people might finally tell the military no more.
Even if the money continues to flow, the armed
services may face an even bigger problem. What if too few people are both
qualified and willing to join the armed forces, even at higher pay, to preserve
Washington’s hegemonic pretensions?
With volunteers, military-political leaders must
convince young men and women to serve. And that is proving increasingly
difficult. In April service representatives warned that
2022 was "arguably the most challenging recruiting year" since the
All-Volunteer Force’s creation a half-century ago. Finding recruits willing to
die for Washington’s imperial pretensions is especially difficult for
the Army. Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said he would have preferred to
add 70,000 to last year’s force of nearly 485,000 soldiers. Instead, he had to
cut the number to 473,000.
Numerous small fixes have been advanced to address
manpower shortages. Add recruiters, increase retention of existing personnel,
use new approaches to reach younger Americans, encourage physical fitness in
school, hire laterally for specialty roles, reduce reasons for
disqualification, adjust military life to appeal to a new generation, and even
deploy robots. These and other steps might help at the margin.
However, the fundamental problem of too few qualified potential recruits
willing to enlist would remain. This leaves Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)
"worried we’re now in the early days of a long-term threat to the
all-volunteer force, with a small and declining number of Americans who are
eligible and interested in military service."
Where will Washington policymakers find the youth
expected to act as guardians of the most violent and distant parts of America’s
vast global empire? Some desperate policymakers urge a return to conscription.
Coercion remains in vogue in many countries around the world, such as Russia,
Belarus, North Korea, and Syria. Retired army officers Dennis Laich and Larry
Wilkerson believe a draft is necessary for
America "because a combination of ever-growing missions for the military
and outside pressures on the dollars being spent their [stet] will force
it."
In short, in their view not enough young men and women
are willing to serve, especially at a price Uncle Sam can afford. So more of
them must be forced into uniform at penurious wages. (This is not a new
position. Years ago at a conference on conscription the retired, and highly
compensated, Gen. William Westmoreland told me that conscripts should be paid
"cigarette money.") If you can’t convince graduating high school
students to sign up, no problem: just put a gun to their head.
There are many practical reasons why this would
be a bad idea.
Conscription isn’t cheap. Rather, it shifts costs onto "new
accessions," as they are called. Unless a draft is for life, the military
still must pay competitive wages to those it hopes will re-enlist, as well as
officers like Westmoreland, who don’t work for "cigarette money."
(Rank has its privileges, as the saying goes!) Anyway, if saving money is the
most important objective, why not conscript congressional staff, civil service
managers, postal workers, and civilian defense personnel?
More important, draftees typically have little
motivation to serve, invest in skills, or re-enlist If they act up, kicking
them out of uniform is a reward, not punishment. The AVF provided higher-quality personnel than conscription, at least until now, since the Pentagon
could be choosy, requiring a high school degree or GED and a minimum score on the
Armed Forces Qualification Test. (A couple weeks ago the US Army announced that
it was suspending the former requirement, only to quickly backtrack after
sustained criticism.) Finally, with annual accessions under 200,000, a draft
would be highly unfair, dragooning but a small share of the four million
Americans who turn 18 every year. Adding a civilian "service" program would be even worse,
in effect drafting people to clean up parks and empty bedpans.
Finally, conscription remains unlikely politically
absent a credible argument that it is necessary for national survival. The
Korean and Vietnam Wars should have failed that test, but they occurred during
the Cold War when the specter of the Soviet Union carried all before it. Today
no adversary is nearly as dangerous as the latter.
Few believe that the US had a compelling need to
occupy Afghanistan and invade Iraq. The detritus of American foreign policy,
such as proposals for defense guarantees for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are even worse: proposing to dragoon young Americans into
service because young Saudis and Emiratis believe military service is beneath
them and should be hired out. As for Russia and China, however threatening they
might be to other nations, neither shows any interest in attacking America.
Rather, the US is attempting to dominate its neighborhoods along its
borders. There are plenty of populous, prosperous states friendly to
America capable of doing a lot more to deter Russian and Chinese aggression. In
any case, America’s interests in those regions are not existential and do not
warrant forcing young Americans to fight and die.
So what if the US runs out of money and recruits?
Rather than desperately casting about for ways to expand
an already bloated military, Washington policymakers should begin setting
foreign policy priorities. Which means leaving allies to defend themselves. For
instance, Europe has a substantially larger population than America and much
greater than Russia, yet the US continues to send more troops to Europe.
Washington added some 20,000 personnel after Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine. Explained CNN:
"The US is expected to keep 100,000 troops stationed in Europe for
the foreseeable future … . The numbers could temporarily increase if NATO
carries out more military exercises in the region, and the US could add
additional bases in Europe if the security environment changes, the officials
added."
That’s not all. A couple months ago Gen. Mark Milley,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, backed up establishing permanent
bases in Eastern Europe. At last week’s NATO summit the Pentagon announced new
deployments in Europe, which "included extending a Carrier Strike Group,
deploying additional fighter squadrons and lift/tanker aircraft, and deploying
an Amphibious Readiness Group and Marine Expeditionary Force. DoD added a Corps
Headquarters, Division Headquarters, Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT),
Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT), High Mobility Artillery Rocket System
(HIMARS) battalion, and multiple enablers to the existing Corps Forward Command
Post, Division Headquarters, and three BCTs already stationed in or deployed to
Europe."
Moreover, Washington remains unnecessarily entangled in
the Middle East. Why? Egypt has more than enough troops to tyrannize its
civilian population; Cairo doesn’t need America’s help. Israel is a regional
superpower and also can take care of itself. Syria is a tragic nation that
barely survives and threatens no one, especially America. Iraq can muddle
through without a US military presence. The KSA and UAE are vile dictatorships
that hold their own people in bondage. US military personnel shouldn’t be used
as de facto royal bodyguards. The emerging alliance between Israel and the Gulf
States is a military counterweight to Iran.
Three successive administrations planned to pivot to
the Pacific, but the rebalancing promised should be conducted by America’s
allies and friends. South Korea has 50 times the GDP and twice the population
of the North: why does Washington still garrison the peninsula? Worse, why
should Japan continue to cheap ride on America? Proposals that Tokyo up its
military outlays to two percent of GDP are welcome, but long-overdue, still
inadequate, and planned too far into the future. Indeed, they might never occur
unless the US stops treating Japan as a defense dependent. Other states that are nervous about Chinese and North Korean adventurism should also augment their forces.
For decades much of the "free world," as the
motley collection of American client states was called, depended on US military
personnel. Through 1973 Washington forced its citizens into uniform. They
patrolled much of the globe, and many died in combat, most promiscuously in
Vietnam.
Over the last half-century, the US armed services
relied on volunteers. However, enthusiasm for the rigors of military life has
ebbed. Moreover, few young people desire to serve in stupid wars in which one
could lose one’s life fulfilling the fantasies of Washington’s ivory tower
warriors. Imagine avoiding Vietnam, only to die in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq,
or Syria.
No wonder the propensity to serve is down. For a time,
the Pentagon found it difficult to attract new soldiers during much of the Iraq
war. Now the US Army was forced to downsize because of young people’s
increasing reluctance to enlist. Attribute that to the public’s good sense.
Washington should respond by doing more "leading
from behind," as President Barack Obama called it. Other countries should
take over protecting their own interests. This includes providing military
personnel to defend their governments, societies, and nations. If America runs
short on new recruits the US should shrink its geopolitical ambitions. The
young shouldn’t be expected to die for the dubious grand designs of today’s
governing elites.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato
Institute. He is a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, where
he worked with the Military Manpower Task Force, and the author of several
books, including Foreign Follies: America’s New Global
Empire (Xulon) and Human Resources and Defense Manpower (National
Defense University).
