Are Biden's Pentagon Recruiting Pitfall Concerns Caused by Plans to Engage in the Great Power War?

US military forces are struggling to meet their fiscal year 2022 recruiting goals with the Army having achieved only 40 percent of its recruiting goals so far. What message does the emerging trend send to the Pentagon?

Virtually every branch of the US military is facing recruiting difficulties this year, according to NBC News. The pool of those eligible to join the military has been steadily shrinking because of health issues, drug use or criminal records.

An internal Pentagon survey shows that only 9 percent of young Americans eligible to serve had any inclination to do so with roughly half of all US youths surveyed anticipating emotional, psychological and physical problems in the Army. There is a good reason behind these concerns, according to David T Pyne, an EMP Task Force scholar and former US Department of Defense officer.

"For two decades from 2001 to 2021, the US fought the Global War on Terror in which it invaded and occupied Afghanistan, Iraq and part of Syria in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon," he says, adding that these "no-win counterinsurgency wars resulted in tens of thousands of US soldiers being killed or wounded and hundreds of thousands of troops suffering from PTSD."

Unfortunately, "open-ended, never-ending counterinsurgency wars which are inherently unwinnable and have no achievable war aim" have been especially frustrating for the mental health and soldierly spirit of the US military, according to the military expert. In addition to that, these wars squandered $6 trillion which might have been used to rebuild and modernize the US armed forces, Pyne emphasizes.

"Many - if not most - young Americans know people who served in our no-win Middle East wars where our veterans have come home disillusioned about why they were sent to fight multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan when in both countries America’s enemies are now firmly in control," he notes.

White House's Woke Agenda Eating Away at US Army Image

It's not the first time the Pentagon has struggled to meet recruiting goals, according to Pyne.

"That happened during the George W Bush presidency [2001 to 2009] as well," he notes. "The US did not reach its recruiting goals and so they had to lower the requirements to include even those with criminal records including past drug offenses to meet recruiting requirements."

However, instead of loosening requirements and even allowing more non-citizens to join in order to increase recruiting, the federal government would be wiser "to increase US military salaries, bonuses and benefits rather than to loosen requirements on who can serve in uniform," Pyne says.

Still, the Biden administration is appearing to overlook the US Army's burning issues as he unleashed the "woke" culturally Marxist political indoctrination on the American military, the ex-DoD officer says. Biden's Pentagon is politicizing the US military and forcing it to go after political dissenters within the ranks of the US armed forces.

"According to one source - LTC Allen West (USA Ret.) - Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has encouraged the creation of Soviet-style zampolit (political officers) in the armed forces in all but name to identify and root out strong Trump supporters, patriots, soldiers who believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen and other staunch political opponents within the armed forces as so called 'right-wing extremists' and 'white supremacists'," says Pyne.

Austin's approach has probably been demoralizing for a proportion of soldiers, causing some to leave the armed services prematurely and leading the Army to fall short of its recruitment and retention goals, according to the former Pentagon officer.

If that weren't enough, the Biden administration enforced the COVID-19 vaccine mandate "by kicking unvaccinated soldiers, sailors and airmen out of the armed services which may well be a major factor in the army's increasing failure to meet recruiting goals," according to the military expert. He does not rule out that millions of young, unvaccinated Americans probably do not want to join the US military because of the vaccine mandates.

Biden's Ukraine Adventurism

US youths might also be concerned about Joe Biden's "maximalist statements with regards to the proxy war he is fighting against Russia in Ukraine".

"Even though he has clearly stated that under no circumstances will he send US troops to fight Russia unless Russia attacks a member of NATO, Biden’s poor leadership has not inspired much confidence that the conflict will remain contained," Pyne highlights.

On 25 June, the New York Times revealed that CIA personnel and commandos from the UK, France, Canada and Lithuania have been operating in Ukraine since the outset of the Russian special operation despite the US and NATO denying that they have deployed forces there. The US and its NATO allies are also continuing to provide heavy weapons to Ukraine with the UK openly calling for stepping up military aid to Kiev, thus prolonging the conflict.

Washington could have mediated a negotiated compromise peace agreement instead of flooding the Eastern European country with heavy weapons, argues Pyne. On 18 June the former DoD officer proposed a 15-point comprehensive settlement plan in his op-ed for bimonthly international relations magazine, The National Interest, arguing that a peaceful and neutral Ukraine would do far more to advance US national interests than a protracted conflict deliberately fanned by NATO.

U.S. Soldiers assigned to the East Africa Response Force (EARF), deployed in support of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, prepare to depart for Libreville, Gabon, at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Jan. 2, 2019

© Photo : U.S. Army

Are Shortfalls in Recruiting Goals Critical for the US Military?

At the same time, Pyne is "not unduly alarmed" by the fact that the US military is falling short of its recruitment objectives. Furthermore, he expresses skepticism about the necessity for the US to maintain present US army force levels. The former Defense Department officer argues that it would make more sense to engage in limited reductions to the present force structure of the army so that funding could be freed up to rebuild the US strategic deterrent and shift focus more on homeland defense than offensive power projection.

He emphasizes that the all-volunteer force remains quite sustainable today especially given that in modern warfare, heavy weapons are of greater consequence than numbers of troops. He further refers to a number of studies indicating that volunteer military forces are much better trained and motivated than conscripts.

So Pyne does not foresee a significant negative impact to US military readiness from the ongoing slump in recruiting goals, "unless US leaders should foolishly opt to engage in a great power war".

"The only reason to maintain the size of the army at present levels is to preserve our expeditionary force capabilities to send large numbers of troops to defend Eastern Europe and our allies along the Pacific Rim," Pyne highlights.

It would be much wiser for the US to increase arms shipments to its allies so they could defend themselves and withdraw American troops from the aforementioned regions while keeping Western Europe and Japan under the US nuclear umbrella, the military expert says.

"The US should not be the policeman of the world," says Pyne. "Rather, it should become the peacemaker of the world as President Woodrow Wilson hoped it could be before the ill-advised US entry into the First World War, which, along with tragic strategic mistakes committed by US leaders during the Second World War, have led to most of the national security dilemmas we are suffering now."