The US military is facing a recruiting crisis, with the Army, Air Force, and Navy all falling short of their goals in 2023. However, the solution to this crisis lies not in blaming “woke culture” or inadequate benefits, but in understanding the root cause: the lack of a compelling reason for Americans to enlist.
When the US is at war, recruits surge in to serve, as seen in the wake of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. However, without a clear and present threat to our nation’s safety, enlistment numbers plummet. The problem is not one of recruiting, but of military readiness.
The real concern should be the state of the military’s infrastructure. Gen. Patton once said that Americans love to fight, but our ability to do so is being held back by a lack of investment in our military’s technological and logistical capabilities.
Shipbuilding, for example, is significantly behind schedule, with some ships already years overdue. The Navy lacks the necessary ships for peacetime operations, and it will be impossible to catch up to meet wartime needs. In a war with China, this would be a major liability.
The problem is not limited to ships; our weapons systems are also lagging behind. We are running out of critical long-range, precision-guided munitions, and it takes years to produce new ones. In a conflict with China, we could run out of these critical supplies in under a week.
Furthermore, our military is expending or giving away critical weapons systems faster than we are producing them. This leaves us with inadequate wartime stockpiles, and it will take years to build them back up.
The answer is not to simply increase production when war breaks out, as this is a slow process that we have seen in Ukraine. Instead, we need to reinvest in our military industrial base, which has been neglected for too long. As China continues to rapidly increase its military production capacity, it is unacceptable that we are allowing our own infrastructure to wither.
