The Department of War (DOW) is receiving well-earned praise for reversing the military’s recruitment crisis. In FY2025, all the branches of the military met or exceeded their recruitment goals.
(The problem) is America’s retention crisis. Given the immensely complex tasks we demand of experienced enlisted service members and officers, the time and money it takes to replace the expertise required to perform these tasks, and how central this expertise is to modern warfighting, we cannot afford to keep hemorrhaging essential talent.
Despite spending nearly six billion dollars on recruiting and retention in recent years, including giving over 70,000 people retention bonuses, people are leaving the military at some of the highest rates of the last decade. For instance, 7% of Air Force officers and 11% of Airmen now leave the service each year, 350% and 550% above the national average, respectively.
Unsurprisingly, the more specialized and in-demand an officer’s skill-set is, the more likely the military is to lose them to the private sector. Four thousand troops left cyber jobs in 2024, despite DOW facing a 16% cyber position vacancy rate. While DOW does not publicly track how many AI experts it employs and loses each year, Georgetown University reports an intense shortage of uniformed personnel who understand both the mission and the emerging technology.
defend from what?
To defend rich people’s interests. In a capitalist country that is usually fossil fuels and ocean shipping lanes.
Need to be able to ship in oil from the middle east and everything else from China.
Poor people have to worry about cops. Rich people have worry about their revenue streams. The military and cops protect those “interests”.
Remember kids, politicians use the military when those politicians failed at their job but refuse to step down. The military is a weapon not a tool.
Obviously from all those plucky little 3rd world countries we democratized in previous wars, silly! In other words, we’re just defending ourselves from the consequences of our actions; totally normal and rational and okay to call it defense.
In case I’m not clear: the US has been the hotdog costume guy for a long time, but we don’t drive a car into the shops we’re robbing, we bring tanks.
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Theoretical defense, war is an institution and if not maintained you may be caught wrong footed when it comes a knocking. How many empires, kingdoms, or city states have been utterly annihilated because they forgot how to truly conduct warfare.
How many empires, kingdoms, or city states had satellites watching every movement around the globe?
How many had mass surveillance of digital infrastructure around the globe?
How many had an ocean either side of them and 2 (until recently) friendly countries north and south?
How many had military bases in multiple other countries’ territory?
How many had a military expenditure so vast it dwarfs all other global military spending combined?
I understand your point, but when it comes to the American military, they’ve gone far beyond what could ever be justified as defence readiness.
Maybe but that is also a relatively recent development, as recently as 40 years ago there was a near peer that could be a potential threat. While that turned out to be a generous over estimation one does not under estimate their goes, also the US does have quite a few allies that do or could need assistance against far larger threats, though how long that’ll last is anyone’s guess.
Fact of the matter is the circumstances for which the argument could be made that the US military should be dissolved is relatively new, while the argument about war policy is as old as the US itself. Though personally I don’t think either will matter much longer, the reactionaries and corporations are doing a stand-up job ensuring every empire killing problem is hit simultaneously.