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[0] According to the Pentagon, the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force will all fall well short of their recruiting goals this year, highlighting a concerning trend that's worsened in recent years.
[1] The news comes as polling shows Americans are less confident in the U .S. military than at any point since the 90s.
[2] On this episode of Morning Wire, we hear from military experts on what's behind the recruiting shortfall, how the Pentagon is responding, and what it means for America's military preparedness.
[3] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley.
[4] It's August 6th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.
[5] Here to discuss the recruiting shortfall and the waning public confidence in the military is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
[6] So, Cabot, you've spoken to a number of military experts on their thoughts, but first, let's walk through the numbers.
[7] How much of a shortfall are we seeing?
[8] Well, we won't have this year's final numbers until the fall when the fiscal year ends, but officials with the Army, Navy, and Air Force each say that they're preparing to fall well short of their recruitment goals for the year.
[9] For context, last year the Army, America's largest military branch, missed its target by 25%, falling 15 ,000 recruits short.
[10] And this year, the Pentagon says they're going to miss it again, likely by around 16 % or 10 ,000 recruits.
[11] Similarly, the Navy expects to fall 16 % short, while the Air Force expects to fall short by 10 ,000 airmen, or 37 % of its 2023 goal.
[12] This will be the first time in 24 years that the Air Force has missed their recruitment goal.
[13] That shortfall is already having a very real impact on military operations across the board.
[14] For example, the Army is considering cutting the number of active brigade combat teams, while the Navy says a number of their ships are currently undermanned.
[15] In response, they announced this spring that naval recruiters will temporarily begin working six days a week instead of five to address the shortage.
[16] So what are some strategies they're trying to get the numbers up?
[17] Well, first, they're definitely relying on financial incentives, offering much larger enlistment bonuses than in years past.
[18] For example, the Army is now offering up to $50 ,000 bonuses for new recruits.
[19] That's their largest sum in history, while the Air Force has offered similar incentives and asked Congress for an additional $648 million in next year's budget to help fund enlistment bonuses for new recruits.
[20] The Navy is going even further.
[21] They announced in June that they're offering up to $75 ,000 enlistment bonuses for certain jobs, as well as loan repayments up to $65 ,000.
[22] The Army also created a new program last year to help recruits who'd failed to meet basic academic or fitness standards.
[23] In the past, most of those recruits were often turned away, but now they're given the chance to attend the future soldier prep course, a new training program where they're tutored until they can pass the entrance exam or worked out until they can pass the fitness exam.
[24] The Navy announced this year that they'll soon implement a similar program.
[25] For more on this, I spoke with retired Army Lieutenant General Thomas Spore, who now serves as director of the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation.
[26] They're making service easier in some cases, so they're giving people.
[27] trying to give them more choice on where they're assigned and whether they're assigned with some of their friends or not and trying to work with them in terms of what their career fields are.
[28] And there are also lawmakers in Congress with some sort of outside the box ideas for expanding recruitment.
[29] Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat senator from Illinois, for example, has proposed legislation that would allow for illegal immigrants and other non -citizens to enlist, as long as they could pass a DOD background check.
[30] Though similar measures have failed in Congress twice since 2017, It gives an idea of just how desperate the situation is being viewed in Washington.
[31] Right.
[32] Now, is every branch of the military seeing this same problem?
[33] Yeah, it's worth noting.
[34] While the Army, Navy, and Air Force all fell short, two branches actually exceeded their recruiting goals, the Space Force and the Marine Corps.
[35] A big reason the Space Force hit their recruiting goal this year is just simply because they don't need as many recruits.
[36] The entire force is comprised of fewer than 12 ,000 people, and last year they only brought on about 600 new recruits.
[37] So a more manageable recruiting goal.
[38] Exactly.
[39] Exactly.
[40] Now, what about the Marine Corps?
[41] Yeah, they're having no problems meeting their goals.
[42] According to the Pentagon, not only are they going to exceed expectations this year, but they're actually expected to fill 30 % of the recruiting goals for next year by the start of fiscal year 2024 in October.
[43] Now, the Marine Corps does benefit from smaller recruiting goals than the Army.
[44] Last year, it was 33 ,000 recruits compared to 65 ,000 for the Army.
[45] But that's far from the only reason that they're leading the pack.
[46] Here's what Lieutenant General Spore had to say.
[47] The Marine Corps has a brand, you know, and so there are some, brands in our American society where really they don't have to do much advertising.
[48] In the military, the Marine Corps has that.
[49] They had this exclusive kind of mantra that only a few can be Marines and it tracks a number of young people, not numbers that would satisfy all the military's needs, but sufficient numbers to meet the Marine Corps' needs.
[50] And so in that regard, they're relatively fortunate.
[51] And it's worth noting while other branches have lowered some of their standards for enlistment or offered those large bonuses for new recruits, the Marine Corps has not.
[52] Here's General Eric Smith, the Acting Marine Corps Commandant, speaking on that earlier this year.
[53] We haven't lowered our standards one bit.
[54] There's a recruiting challenge.
[55] So you say we should be given out recruiting bonuses.
[56] We don't give recruit bonuses.
[57] Hey, your bonus is you get to call yourself a Marine.
[58] That's your bonus, right?
[59] There's no dollar amount that goes with that.
[60] So the big question, what's behind the drop for Army, Navy, and Air Force?
[61] So as you can imagine, there's hardly one answer, though there are a few leading factors.
[62] A poll of potential recruits commissioned by the Pentagon said the demands and dangers of military life for the number one factor keeping them from enlisting.
[63] Respondents also cited a fear of injury or PTSD after their service as contributing to the hesitance.
[64] And there's also an economic factor.
[65] Despite high inflation rates, America's labor market is actually quite strong right now with around 3 .5 % unemployment.
[66] Historically, recruiting dips down when fewer people are out of work.
[67] And finally, there's the fact that the number of Americans who actually qualify to serve from both the physical and academic standpoint, has fallen dramatically in recent years.
[68] Here's more on that from Lieutenant General Spore.
[69] The top one is probably the labor market that is so hard to get restaurants and others, although that's easing a bit, but still the unemployment rate is very low, 3 .6, 3 .7%, historically low in American history.
[70] The second one is the number of young people that don't qualify to join the military without a waiver.
[71] That number is 23%.
[72] So only 23 % of Americans qualify to join the military, and that's driven by rising levels of obesity, low test scores on topics that are taught in high school, youth that are using more and more psychotropic drugs prescribed by doctors for anxiety and those types of things, but are still disqualifying if they've been taken relatively recently.
[73] In addition to a smaller recruiting pool due to obesity and other medical and educational factors, Spore says that Hollywood and the media often depict the military, in a negative light, which he says has shifted the perception of service over the last few decades.
[74] I don't think Americans know that much about their military.
[75] So what they see, they are influenced by what they see in movies and television shows.
[76] And so when the military kind of pulls back, we leave it to Hollywood in the media to kind of fill that void.
[77] And most of those depictions of the military are at best neutral, and most of them are unfavorable.
[78] You know, the military comes off looking like bumbling fools.
[79] And then the other thing that, again, this is coming through our media channels is there's these perceptions that if you serve in the military, you're going to be hurt mentally or physically, traumatized, maybe sexually, all these kinds of things when the reality is the numbers bear out that people that serve in the military come out stronger, more physically fit, and more resilient as American citizens.
[80] And another problem, according to military experts, is that service simply isn't as appealing as it once was for many people.
[81] If you look at polling data, a large number of Americans say military life is not only too demanding for them, but also could hold them back from better career opportunities.
[82] And Pentagon officials themselves say they're aware that the perception of military service among many Americans is now negative.
[83] In a recent congressional hearing, General Randy George, the Army's vice chief of staff, put it this way.
[84] Our Army remains a great place to be, and I think our high retention rates speak to that.
[85] The trouble is many Americans don't realize it or believe it.
[86] military service to many people seems like a life setback.
[87] In reality, it's a life accelerator.
[88] And we have to get that story out, and we're pouring all of our energy into that effort.
[89] And one other potential factor that's a bit harder to quantify is the role that perceived wokenness in the military is having on potential recruits.
[90] There are many on the right, and in the middle, who say the Pentagon's effort in recent years to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion has turned off a large number of potential recruits.
[91] especially young men.
[92] For example, here's some audio from a controversial Navy instructional video from 2022.
[93] Hi, my name is Johnny and I use he -him pronouns.
[94] Hi, and I'm Conchie and I use Chi -Her pronouns.
[95] And we're here to talk about pronouns.
[96] What is a pronoun?
[97] A pronoun is how we identify ourselves apart from our name, and it's also how people refer to us in conversations.
[98] Using the right pronouns is a really simple way to affirm someone's identity.
[99] It is a signal of acceptance and respect.
[100] If it's a signal of acceptance and respect, how do we go about creating a safe space for everybody?
[101] That's a good question.
[102] A really good way to do that is to use inclusive language.
[103] Instead of saying something like, hey, guys, you can say, hey, everyone, or hey, team.
[104] Yeah, and now that you say that, another way that we could show that we're allies and that we accept everybody is to maybe include our pronouns in our emails or, like we just did, introduce ourselves using our pronouns.
[105] A number of Republican lawmakers and others have blamed initiatives like this for damaging the military brand among potential recruits.
[106] They point to the Pentagon's recent decision to fund gender transition treatments for service members and other social justice initiatives as evidence of what they call a dangerous ideology corrupting the military.
[107] Here's Florida Republican Matt Gates, speaking in the House Armed Services Committee to that point.
[108] We are not meeting our recruiting goals in the military.
[109] Morale is down, and every one of us knows it.
[110] There was one lieutenant, currently on active duty, who lamented, quote, sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we'll survive a fight with the Chinese Navy.
[111] She continued, quote, it's criminal to think that they think my only value is as a black woman, but if you cut our ship open with a missile, we'll all bleed the same color.
[112] And this culture war that we see with radical race ideology and radical gender ideology is intermingled, and it permeates all aspects of the Department of Defense and has even bled into the VA.
[113] Now, all of this comes as Americans' confidence in the military is also waning.
[114] Walk us through some of the numbers on that front.
[115] Yeah, this is a really important element to all of this.
[116] According to a new survey from Gallup, 60 % of Americans now say that they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in our military.
[117] While 60 % might not sound too bad, that number actually has not been lower since 1988 when America was in the tail end of the Cold War.
[118] Confidence in the military surged to a record high of 85 % in the early 90s after the Gulf War and then held strong around 80 % until 2010.
[119] But since then, there has been a precipitous drop.
[120] It fell 10 points through the 2010s and has dropped another 10 points in the last two years alone.
[121] Now, it's important to point out, Americans still have more trust in the military than nearly any other institution in the country, including police, the health care system, organized religion, Congress, and the Supreme Court.
[122] But it's clearly falling.
[123] Here's Lieutenant General Spore again.
[124] Number one, I need to mention that Americans have less confidence in everything.
[125] So Americans as a group are much more skeptical of institutions than they've been, maybe ever in our society, but especially now they're dubious of many, many things.
[126] But I think what they saw on TV from the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, that didn't help.
[127] I think reports of wokeness in the military, you know, qualities other than just merit, you know, being weighed.
[128] I think that weighs on some people.
[129] And if you look at the numbers, one thing, that sticks out is how the decline in confidence was much more noticeable among more conservative Americans.
[130] So historically, Republican voters have been by far the most confident in the military, and that still holds true today.
[131] But the gap between those on the right and left has narrowed dramatically.
[132] In 2020, for example, 91 % of Republicans expressed confidence in the military compared to 61 % of Democrats.
[133] Three years later, Republicans have dropped 23 points to 68%, while Democrats have actually increased a point to 62%.
[134] Independents are now the least likely to express confidence.
[135] They're down at just over 55, lower than at any point since 1997.
[136] Now, what are the theories for that fading confidence specifically on the right?
[137] Well, some have said the drop among Republicans is more due to President Biden being in office and less to do with the military, but historically we actually have not seen much fluctuation based on who's in the White House.
[138] For example, from 08 to 2016 when Obama was in office, Republican confidence in the military held incredibly steady, never dipping below 80%.
[139] So while someone on the right could have less confidence solely because of President Biden, it likely doesn't account for the massive drop we've seen.
[140] It's more likely that the same things contributing to falling recruitment are also impacting confidence.
[141] The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, perceived whokeness among military leadership, and a general distrust in government institutions as a whole.
[142] Well, certainly an issue that's not going away anytime soon.
[143] Cabot, thanks for reporting.
[144] Anytime.
[145] That was Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
[146] And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.
[147] Don't know.