Yesterday afternoon, the Army announced they would miss the recruiting quota again this month. That is two months in a row, but the situation is more serious than that. This is going to mean Army strength is down six of the past nine months. And this comes at the time the Army wants to increase active strength to take pressure off the Reserves and National Guard.
We will learn the exact monthly shortfall in about ten days. I have also collected quite a bit of recent anecdotal evidence that 20 year retirements have been increasing substantially.
I predict Army strength will be reported in the 490,000 to 495,000 range for end of February (that report comes out in about 45 days). That is a long way from the 532,400 authorized strength the Army was directed to increase to this year.
Obviously, the huge enlistment bonus increases approved on Feb 3, have no traction yet. I doubt they get much traction. Very few youngsters know the difference between $10,000 and $20,000 and those that do are unlikely enlistment prospects imo.
The bigger issue is what this does to our strategic thinking. At some point, soon, we have to admit that we cannot sustain our fighting force and adjust. For starters, I am beginning to believe that we must now consider avoiding, at all costs, an expansion of the War On Terror in the Mideast. That may be hard to do. Wars have a natural tendency to expand and grow.
The General Officer who Commands US Army Recruiting Command wants to make an adjustment too. His new tactic, also announced yesterday, is to direct all recruiters to immediately begin appealing to the patriotism of the parents of young men. It only took him 7 weeks to discard emphasizing the big bucks as the primary incentive.
I know some patriotic parents who would love for their kids to enlist. The problem is the kids can't pass the drug test.
All of this reminds of the Vietnam era bumper sticker that read, "What if they had a war and nobody came?"
unclewest |
