Despite Bloated Budget, US Entering 2024 With Tiniest Military Since 1941
13:34 GMT 17.12.2023 (Updated: 13:44 GMT 17.12.2023)
© Wikipedia / United States Army Signal Corps
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Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2024 on Thursday, with the annual defense bill ballooning to a record $886 billion. But record outlays have not translated to capabilities, with a recent ranking listing Russia, which reportedly plans to spend about $140 billion on defense in 2024, as the world’s strongest military.
The United States will ring in the new year with its smallest active duty footprint since 1941 – the year Washington abandoned its non-interventionist foreign policy and joined the Second World War.
That’s according to military strength levels outlined by the NDAA, which showed a drop in active duty personnel to 1,284,500 service members, from 1.39 million in the previous year, as recruiters face growing difficulty enticing young people to join.
Observers blame a variety of factors for falling recruitment numbers, from declining confidence in the US military (from 70 percent in 2018 to about 46 percent now), to growing incidence of health problems among young people, to concerns among conservatives about the military’s increasingly “woke” culture, to falling morale in the wake of decades of illegal wars abroad.
DoD acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness Ashish Vazirani told lawmakers this week that the military had recruited about 41,000 troops less than planned over the course of 2023. “That number understates [sic] the challenge before us as the services lowered end-strength goals in recent years, in part because of the difficult recruiting environment,” Vazirani said.
Citing “low trust in institutions” being a key problem among young people – specifically people from Generation Z born between 1997 and 2012, Vazirani stressed that America’s all-volunteer armed forces are presently facing “one of the greatest challenges since inception” in 1973 and the end of the draft.
17 December 2023, 01:50 GMT
Some officials have proposed novel solutions for resolving the drought in recruits, with Democratic Senator Dick Durban telling his Senate colleagues earlier this month that illegal immigrants flooding into the country could be conscripted to fight in the wars Americans don’t want to.
“Yes, we need order at the border. Yes, we need to have changes in the laws that reflect the reality of the overwhelming numbers from all over the world who are coming to our shores and our border. But there’s also an incredible demand for legal immigration into this country even now. The presiding officer, my colleague from the state of Illinois has legislation which addresses one aspect of that. Her bill…says that if you are an undocumented person in this country, and you can pass the physical and the required background tests, you can serve in our military and if you do it honorably, we will make you citizens of the United States,” Durban said on the Senate floor during a debate on immigration and border security.
Senator Dick Durbin wants to make it possible for illegal immigrants to join the US military: "Do you know what the recruiting numbers are at the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force? They can't reach their quotas each month. They can't find enough people to join." pic.twitter.com/UWuGSfrSkF
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) December 4, 2023
“Do we need that? Do you know what the recruiting numbers are in the Army, and the Navy, and the Air Force?” Durban asked. “They can’t reach their quotas each month. They can’t find enough people to join our military forces, and there are those who are undocumented who want the chance to serve and risk their lives for this country. Should we give them the chance? I think we should.”
Vazirani assured that “while the current recruiting environment is acutely difficult, the Defense Department and the military services are working together to resolve issues, improve processes, and expand awareness of the many opportunities military service offers. We must reach today’s youth where they are with a message that resonates with them and motivates them to act,” he said, calling on leaders and lawmakers alike to make a “national call to service.”
15 December 2023, 15:24 GMT
The US military’s numbers have been dropping since 2020, with all branches of service facing cutbacks apart from the nascent Space Force.
Dropping recruitment notwithstanding, the US has continued to ramp up defense spending, rising it from $778.4 billion in 2020, to $800.67 billion in 2021, $877 billion in 2022, and $858 billion in 2023 and $886 billion in the coming fiscal year. But the spending may not have translated into capabilities, with the US News & World Report recently ranking Russia the world’s number one strongest military, with the US ranked second. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute expects Russia to spend roughly $140 billion on defense in 2024, which SIPRI says signals Moscow’s “determination” to see the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine through to the end.
