With the notable exception of the Marines, the U.S. military is facing a recruiting crisis.
The Army’s recruiting numbers fell about 15,000 short of its goal for fiscal year 2022 and 10,000 short of its goal of 65,000 for fiscal year 2023. The Army expects to meet its target this year, but that’s because the target was 10,000 lower than last year’s actual target of 55,000.
The Navy has also fallen short of its enlistment targets. It planned to recruit 37,000 sailors in fiscal year 2023, but fell short by 7,460. This is the first time the Navy has faced a recruiting shortfall. Earlier this year, the Navy announced it had met its target for fiscal year 2024, but recently announced it was again 6,700 short of its target. This year’s shortfall has left about 18,000 positions at sea unfilled, placing an additional strain on sailors already serving long-term overseas deployments.
The Air Force also missed its recruiting goals for fiscal year 2023. It expects to meet its targets this year, but that, like the Navy’s revised estimate, is subject to change.
In all military forces, fewer available personnel places greater demands on those actually serving, reducing both efficiency and morale.
Some argue that a strong economy and low unemployment rates create more attractive alternatives for young people to military service. But many economists point out that unemployment has been low in recent years in part because people have taken low-paying jobs that, in theory, are poor alternatives to military service, which offers many benefits. Economics can’t fully explain the recruitment shortage.
These shortfalls are due to several additional, and perhaps more significant, factors. First, due to factors such as obesity, drug use, or inability to meet academic standards, only 23% of Americans ages 17-24 are eligible to serve in the military. Even worse, only 9% of this age group are interested in joining the military.
Because it is difficult to gain entry into military facilities, civilians have little contact, much less close association, with military personnel unless they have a relative who is a service member or veteran. In fact, 80 percent of young people who enlist are relatives of someone who has served in the military for some time.
moreover, Most Recent According to the Reagan Defense Review Report, public confidence in the military has plummeted from 70% in 2018 to 46% by 2023. In fact, roughly one-third of Americans say they would not encourage a friend or family member to join the military, a very alarming finding.
Some argue that the only way the military can achieve its recruiting goals is to reinstate mandatory military service. However, most analyses find that reinstating conscription would be more costly than maintaining a decades-old all-volunteer military. Conscription would also weaken military morale and unit cohesion, as it did in the 1960s, and could spark the same protest movements that occurred during that tumultuous decade. The social and national security costs of conscription far outweigh the benefits to the military.
Two years of mandatory national service is a much better alternative than conscription. Such national service may ultimately increase the chances that the military will achieve its recruitment goals. When young people know they will have to serve their country, they are more likely to consider the military option, especially for those who choose to stay in the military for more than two years, given all the benefits that military service brings.
The federal government currently promotes a variety of national service programs, including the Peace Corps, which John F. Kennedy launched in his first year in office; in 1964 Lyndon Johnson created VISTA, an anti-poverty initiative that was merged with other agencies into AmeriCorps in the first year of the Clinton administration; and George W. Bush created the USA Freedom Corps.
But service in these agencies is all-volunteer. Some lawmakers have proposed expanding voluntary service programs, but none of those proposals have gained significant support and are unlikely to make any difference to the military’s recruiting woes.
Twenty years ago, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) legislation The president first proposed universal military service in 2002, but the bill died in the House of Representatives. He tried to introduce it multiple times over the next decade, all without success.
Congress should reconsider Rangel’s proposal. Compulsory military service could do much more than fill a military recruitment gap. It could expose young people to fellow citizens different from themselves, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender, and thereby help bridge the bitter divides that plague our nation.
This op-ed is part of The Hill’s “How to Fix America” series, which explores solutions to some of America’s most pressing problems.
Dov S. Zakheim Center for Strategic and International Studies and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors Foreign Policy Research InstituteHe served as Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.
