The Patriot Post® · The Changing Climate of Military Recruitment
The world is on fire. Conflicts from the Middle East to Ukraine threaten global stability and leave the United States and its allies in a situation demanding military readiness. Some military and political analysts even warn that one of these conflicts could spark a world war.
Not to worry. Americans can sleep at night knowing our military is laser-focused on the greatest threats to our national security. However, the Armed Forces aren’t focused on strategy, weapons systems, or helping recruits become battle-ready. Instead, they plan to win the next war by fighting climate change and politicizing the military.
Sherri Goodman, Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate and Security, is leading the climate effort. In a recent podcast with the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia, she used circumlocution to explain why the greatest threat to our national security isn’t war but weather.
In addition to building seawalls around military bases for waters that aren’t rising and completely redesigning base structures to withstand winds that aren’t increasing, “there are major efforts underway to move towards net-zero in energy use as a way both to improve energy resilience, particularly at U.S. bases so that they can operate even if the grid goes down,” Goodman says. “And then additionally to improve our military performance by advancing and reducing dependence on long supply chains of fossil fuels in contested logistics environments.”
Russian and Chinese leaders must be shaking in their boots over the fear of a net-zero American military.
“There are many reasons no army on Earth uses electric tanks,” Andrew Follett writes at National Review. “Jet A, the standard kerosene fuel that Goodman is worried could spill out of America’s tanks, has an energy density of 12,000 watt-hours per kilogram. In comparison, a top-of-the-line Tesla 4680 lithium-ion car battery has an energy density of just under 233 watt-hours per kilogram. Russia and China would surely appreciate a forced redesign that makes America’s tanks more than 50 times less efficient and more vulnerable!”
Basically, we’re sending young men and women into life-threatening situations with one hand tied behind their backs. Solar-powered barracks, battery-operated tanks, and environmentally sustainable meals in the mess won’t help them when faced with an enemy determined to win battles with powerful weaponry and gas-guzzling tanks.
Maybe that’s one reason why the Armed Forces are having trouble meeting their recruitment goals. Who wants to fight when the very country you want to defend is making it harder for you to win?
Putting climate aside, another problem making military service less appealing is steady politicization.
The Heritage Foundation reports that last year, “Fully 68% of service members surveyed said they have witnessed either moderate or significant politicization in the military, with 65% expressing concern over it” and “that 79% of all recruits come from families with a history of military service.”
The politicization of the military takes many different forms, including lowering standards for physical fitness, dropping requirements for entrance tests, pushing ideological topics in service academies, and social engineering of recruits and enlisted. And the military brass think it’s more important for members of the Armed Forces to embrace the right ideology than to be able to win wars.
Will Thibeau writes at The Claremont Institute, “A military consumed by politics and identity threatens the very integrity of our republic. In other sectors of society, the consequences of shirking the primacy of merit amount to a bad hire as university president, or maybe a missed revenue projection for a given fiscal quarter. In the military, the stakes are obviously higher.”
Indeed, it’s getting harder to find people willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, and those who want to join don’t meet some of the minimum standards.
ABC News reports, “The pool of young people who meet the basic standards to enlist in the military is also shrinking. Only 23% of Americans aged 17 to 24 are eligible to join without being granted a waiver. This is down from 29% in recent years, according to Pentagon data. Obesity and drug use are common disqualifying factors.”
The U.S. Army even had to create a Future Solider Preparatory Course to “to help increase the quality of individuals entering basic training and provide additional opportunities to serve in our all-volunteer force.”
“Enlistment numbers have steadily dropped for the past 40 years,” reports The Florida Daily, adding “more than 148,318 people enlisted in the US armed forces in 2020, a 59% decline from 1980. The year, the US will see its smallest active-duty force since 1940.”
And the AP reports, “Last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the Navy, Army and Air Force all failed to meet their recruitment goals, while the Marine Corps and the tiny Space Force met their targets. The previous fiscal year, the Army fell 15,000 short of its enlistment goal of 60,000, and the other services had to dig into the pools of delayed entry candidates in order to meet their recruiting numbers.”
There was a time when recruitment centers had no trouble filling their quotas, but young people are catching on. They don’t want to be warriors for a political ideology that takes precedence over winning battles against real threats to our freedom.