Potential recruits have figured out that they can get killed regime changing, nation building, and empire maintenance in places that pose no threat to the United States. Who the hell wants to die for Taiwan or Ukraine? From Doug Bandow at archive.is:
The recruiting crisis is hardly a mystery.
The American empire lives. Leading Republicans and Democrats alike support a proxy war in Europe, back murderous conflict in the Middle East, and threaten catastrophic war in Asia. Fervent critics of “isolationism,” like Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, seem determined to defend everyone except Americans. The bulk of military outlays go either to protect prosperous and populous allies that can’t be bothered to defend themselves or to punish states not inclined to follow Washington’s dictates.
There’s always more money for arms, even though the United States is racing toward insolvency. Federal debt owed to the public is roughly 100 percent of GDP, near the record set at the close of World War II. Without dramatic change, the debt ratio will be twice as high by mid-century. Yet the bloated military budget continues to jump skyward.
The bipartisan congressional War Party risks running out of an even more important resource, manpower. Wrote Newsweek’s Alex Phillips: “A majority of American adults would not be willing to serve in the military were the U.S. to enter into a major war, recent polling has found, while public confidence in the armed forces appears to be waning.”
Phillips responded to a Daily Mail poll on whether Americans would volunteer to fight and die if America was invaded. Only 51 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds said they would do so, triggering complaints about America’s feckless youth.
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