The U.S. Military's Greatest 'Achilles Heel' Is Not What You Think
What You Need to Know: The U.S. military is grappling with a significant manpower crisis, as recruiting barely meets lowered standards, retention remains challenging, and shortages persist in key roles like pilots. Shipyards and industries critical to military production face similar issues, compounded by an aging workforce and waning interest from younger generations.
-Meanwhile, America’s declining birthrate signals long-term demographic challenges, as Gen-Z’s reluctance to start families could exacerbate population decline. Autonomous systems may provide a solution, with digital natives excelling in remote warfare.
-However, America’s rivals, including China, face similar demographic struggles, suggesting a future where unmanned systems dominate warfare rather than human soldiers.
U.S. Military Faces Severe Manpower Shortage Amid Recruiting Challenges
The United States Navy is the smallest it has been since the First World War, and as recent crises have shown, it is stretched thin maintaining a constant presence in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. The situation with the United States Air Force isn't really much better. It operates a total of just 157 bombers, with the majority being Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers last built in the 1960s, while the loss of a single Northrop B-2 Spirit cut the fleet down by five percent.
In addition, Air Force officials are uncertain if the service can afford the highly-touted next-generation fighter, and paused the program in July, while the Navy continues to face production delays with nearly all of its upcoming warships.
Those are serious problems, but the truth is that they can be overcome. The shipbuilding industry is looking at speeding up production, and while it doesn't sound like an "America First" strategy, the sea service has been exploring options with how its fleet of warships could be maintained at overseas facilities in Japan and South Korea. There have even been talks about foreign shipyards building the next-generation American warships.
That could change with the incoming Trump administration, which has promised to Make America Great Again (again), as the optics of future warships built in Japan might not play well in the heartland.
Yet, the fact remains that the issue with too few aircraft, too few ships, etc. is just one of money. Increased defense spending – aka Operation Throw Money At the Problem – could solve some of the military's woes America can build more shipyards; it is just a matter of time and money. More aircraft can be built, something Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and most notably Boeing (not to mention the company's respective shareholders) would love to provide.
However, what can't be so easily fixed is the ongoing manpower issue.
Recruiting Goals – An Ongoing Issue
In October, all of the branches announced that they had met their recruiting goals for fiscal year 2024 (FY24). That might not seem like a huge deal, but it comes after years of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force failing to reach their respective quotas.
Manpower has been the true Achilles Heel of the U.S. Department of Defense in the 21st century, but that shouldn't come as a surprise.
Apart from a few bad years during the "Great Recession" and then during the global pandemic, the country has seen a smoking hot economy and low unemployment. Even during the Great Recession, the military struggled to meet recruiting goals. Unemployment with the youth of America wasn't really a huge problem, because they just moved back home with mom and dad – who begrudgingly accepted it.
During the pandemic, people lived off government stimulus and/or collected unemployment. As the country recovered, unemployment hit record lows – and there was the Great Resignation, where people quit jobs they didn't like and looked for greener pastures. None of that was good news for military recruiters.
Even with clouds of a potential recession on the horizon, young people aren't dashing to the recruiting office, and aren't likely to do so even if things get bad.
The Bar Was Lowered
For FY24, the U.S. military met its recruiting goals largely by lowering the bar. Instead of the U.S. Army asking recruits to "Be All That You Can Be," it expanded its Future Soldier Preparatory Course, which was introduced to aid potential recruits overcome academic and physical fitness barriers to service.
The branches of the military have also increasingly offered waivers for past drug use, accepted recruits with all sorts of tattoos, and as just noted, set up the de facto "fat camps" to get those who would have been denied a path to service.
Only the United States Marine Corps and the U.S. Space Force – the two smallest branches – have turned away would-be applicants in recent years. The other services have pulled out all the stops, including incentives and bonuses. Money is being thrown at that problem, albeit with limited success.
Pilot Shortage Continues
The issue where the military has been the hardest hit is in retaining pilots. For the past few years, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy have paid bonuses as high as $50,000 per year to aviators who extend their service.
In September, the U.S. Air Force also began to change the policy on the aircraft that newly minted pilots can expect to fly. Instead of waiting for openings to be a fighter pilot or a chance to fly the B-2 Spirit, new pilots will get assigned to other aircraft until an opening comes up.
Even as the air service met its FY24 recruiting goal, it still faced a shortage of more than 1,800 pilots. Graduates of T-38 Talon training will be assigned to work on mobility and refueling aircraft.
Beyond the Military – Personnel Problems Are Serious
It is true; the U.S. could – with time and money – build more shipyards. That absolutely could and arguably should be one. Yet, the shipyards are facing the very same personnel problems as the military.
The shipbuilding industry at nearly all levels is facing a "graying" dilemma. In June 2019, it was reported by USNI News that the average age at BAE Systems Ship Repair yard in Jacksonville, Florida, was 55. Not only was that more than five years ago but it was before the pandemic.
The problem has gotten worse, and shipyards are struggling to find and retain the next generation of workers.
Generation Z isn't rushing to build warships, nor is it interested in making airplanes and tanks. That shows no sign of changing. More than a quarter of younger Americans want to be social media influencers, and while the realization that such ambitions are unrealistic will come into focus for them, it is hard to see many in the woke generation ever wanting to be trained as welders or electricians.
This problem will get worse for another very serious reason.
Wait For It – The Impending Population Decline
The final piece of this manpower puzzle only became increasingly apparent after the election last week. America was already on track to see its population peek around 2080 before leveling off and then possibly declining. That was still a worry for another day.
Now there are signs by 2080 or much sooner we could see a massive population drop. Millennials like Generation X had put off having families, and the U.S. birthrate has been declining for decades. The vast majority of Generation Z has shown almost no interest in having children, and that problem could worsen as the result of the gender divide that became readily apparent in the run-up to the 2024 election.
In addition to the lack of interest among Gen-Z in finding partners and having a family, there has been a surge of interest in the South Korean 4B movement among young women in America, largely in response to Trump's reelection. As CNN explained, "4B is a shorthand for the four Korean words bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae and bisekseu, which translate to no marriage, no childbirth, no dating and no sex with men."
It is possible, and even likely, that a lot of Gen-Z women will change their minds in time; however, enough may still opt not to ever have children. This will leave America graying, and it may not recover.
Conclusions
The U.S. military doesn't have just a warship or airplane shortage. It has a people shortage problem. It has lowered the barrier to entry and has still barely met recruiting goals. A declining population is going to be a serious problem in the years to come and is one that neither side of the political spectrum is likely to resolve – short of instituting "A Handmaid's Tale" type of solution.
The resolution might be a greater focus on remotely-controlled and autonomous platforms. Gen-Z and the Alphas to follow are true digital natives, who would be well suited to serving in a military that involves sitting beyond monitors or personnel screens and controlling those systems.
The "good news" is that the U.S. isn't alone in facing this issue.
China, likely our greatest potential adversary, is facing an even greater population decline – one that some experts have warned borders on a population collapse by the end of the century. That is why Beijing is already looking to unmanned systems to bolster its military.
The future wars might be ones fought between such drones – at least until one side can reach the other's homeland. Or maybe common sense will kick in and mankind will see that with fewer people, the need to fight over land and resources is no longer necessary. Hurrah for population decline.
Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.
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