The US Army, Navy, and Air Force are likely to miss recruiting goals for the second year in a row just as Pentagon data shows the number of young Americans interested in joining the military shrinking.
"Given the US military's current dubious track record of winning wars and helping average Americans, it will have to pay and reward recruits in a way that draws out more qualified recruits... [and] targeted bonuses based on competence will need to be offered and enhanced," Kwiatkowski said.
Amid the waning popularity of the military, she added, US leadership must recognize that Gen-Z, those 25 and under, need to be offered real added value or they will find better options.
Many of them who pay attention to the US military notice that service senior leadership is less competent, more elitist, and less trustworthy than it was in previous decades, Kwiatkowski said.
Not to mention, most Americans, including many veterans, are not impressed with the Pentagon's history of failure in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere, the former Defense Department official said.
And spending hundreds of billions to spark a war with nuclear powers halfway around the world, without public explanation, she added, will make it a challenge to recruit the traditional American teenager.
Kwiatkowski, commenting on reports the Pentagon may let military test applicants use calculators, said making the entrance exams easier to take will only cause bigger problems.
"We see another lowering of intelligence and comprehension standards, which will in turn contribute to a weaker military - one that is more difficult to be a part of, and to lead," she said.
Kwiatkowski suggested the Army and the other services themselves do not really know how many recruits they really need in part because the Pentagon is running a jobs program rather than defending the nation.
"Pentagon bureaucrats operate much as the Soviet Union and Communist China did in the past - using unrealistic bureaucratic 'five-year plans' that may temporarily serve the leadership, but not the core mission. Perhaps the recruiting targets themselves are far too high for the real defense that is being accomplished," Kwiatkowski said.