0:02

Welcome to the President's Inbox, a

0:04

CFR podcast about the foreign policy

0:07

challenges facing the United States. I'm

0:10

Jim Lindsay, Director of Studies at

0:12

the Council on Foreign Relations. This

0:14

week's topic is the U.S. military

0:17

recruiting crisis.

0:23

With me to discuss the challenges that the U.S.

0:25

armed services are having in attracting

0:28

new recruits and what can be done about

0:30

it is Nora Ben-Zahel. Nora

0:33

is a visiting professor of strategic studies

0:35

and senior fellow of the Merrill Center at

0:38

the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International

0:40

Studies. She is also a contributing

0:43

editor and columnist for War on the Rocks.

0:46

She has co-written the book Adaptation

0:48

Under Fire, How

0:49

Militaries Change in Wartime.

0:53

Earlier this year, she co-wrote an article in War

0:55

on the Rocks titled Addressing

0:58

the U.S. Military Recruiting Crisis.

1:01

Nora, thanks for joining me. Thanks

1:03

very much for the invitation to be here. So

1:06

Nora, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary

1:10

of the All-Volunteer Force.

1:13

But over the last several months, I've seen a

1:15

number of articles

1:17

talking about the recruiting

1:19

crisis that the U.S. military and

1:21

the U.S. Army in particular

1:24

are facing. Can you give me a

1:26

sense of the extent and nature

1:29

of the recruiting crisis? Yeah,

1:31

it's pretty extensive and it is now

1:34

spreading beyond the Army to affect most

1:36

of the other services as well. During

1:39

government fiscal year 2022,

1:40

which ran from October 1st of 2021 all the way through September

1:46

30th, 2022, the numbers of people

1:49

who were joining the military fell to some

1:51

of their lowest numbers in recent

1:53

memory. The Army itself fell

1:55

short about 10,000 soldiers that it

1:58

needed to make up its ranks.

1:59

other services were able to make their numbers,

2:02

but just barely. This

2:04

current fiscal year, which will end on September

2:06

30th of this year, the Army

2:09

is on track to lose up to 20,000 additional

2:12

people to shrink by that much. And

2:14

the other services, all except the Marines,

2:17

are projecting that they will come in under

2:20

their military recruitment targets. So

2:22

this is a very significant challenge

2:24

for the military.

2:25

It seems to be shrinking for reasons

2:27

that are not strategic. They're not the

2:29

result of a debate about whether we should have a smaller

2:32

military or a bigger military. It's

2:34

shrinking because there simply aren't enough people

2:36

who are both qualified and interested

2:38

to join the military. And that has defense observers

2:41

really

2:41

extremely concerned about what the future

2:43

of the force is going to look like. So

2:46

Nora, help me understand that when we talk about

2:49

the inability to recruit or failing to meet

2:51

recruitment goals, are we talking

2:54

about recruitment of enlisted

2:56

people? Are we talking about the recruitment

2:58

of officers? Are we talking about both?

3:01

It's the enlisted force primarily.

3:03

The numbers are there on the officer side.

3:06

So we're talking privates who eventually

3:08

have some corporals, sergeants, etc. Exactly.

3:11

And when we say recruiting, we're of course talking about

3:13

the most junior people, getting them in the door

3:15

to serve their first term. One of

3:17

the interesting things about this is that retention,

3:19

keeping people in the military once they've signed

3:22

up, has actually gone up. So

3:24

the people who are serving in the military are choosing

3:27

to stay at it at higher rates than

3:29

the past few years. But the getting people

3:31

in the door for their initial service enlistment

3:33

is where the military has been having tremendous challenges.

3:37

So Nora, is that retention rate

3:39

equivalent across the services

3:42

or do some services do a much better job

3:44

of retaining their enlisted personnel?

3:47

The numbers that I've seen suggest that it is

3:49

widespread, but we won't really know the numbers till

3:51

the fiscal year ends. But the early indications

3:53

are that retention will be fine across

3:56

the services even while recruitment, bringing

3:58

in people initially, is not.

4:00

Okay, so it seems to be that the problem right now

4:03

is more about getting people in the door

4:06

than keeping people in the room once they're

4:08

there. Yep, exactly right. Now

4:10

there seems to be a bit of irony here Nora,

4:13

because I can recall back after

4:15

the beginning of the Afghanistan war and

4:17

certainly after the beginning

4:20

of the Iraq war, there were

4:22

concerns raised that the US military

4:24

would not be able to maintain

4:27

in all volunteer force because people

4:29

who signed up knew they ran

4:31

a very high risk of actually seeing

4:34

combat. But that didn't happen, correct?

4:36

You're right, it didn't happen. And many people,

4:38

including myself, expected that it would.

4:41

I think that the patriotism that 9-11

4:43

evoked kept many people joining

4:46

the military for many years. And

4:48

as well, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively,

4:50

people who sign up to join the military

4:52

tend to want to fight. And so even

4:54

though the risks were high, of

4:56

course, recruitment ended up not

4:58

being a problem for most of the wars

5:00

in Iraq and Afghanistan. So

5:03

I have to ask you the so what question.

5:06

If the United States Army or the United

5:08

States Navy or the Air Force are

5:11

unable to meet their recruiting targets,

5:14

what's the consequence? Well,

5:16

the consequence is the military might

5:19

not be as ready as it would otherwise

5:21

be to fight in wars of the future

5:23

if they come. Fighting

5:26

in a future war is what

5:27

the business of the Department of Defense is.

5:29

It's what the military trains for every single

5:32

day. And the risk is if

5:34

the US military is too small

5:37

to conduct the kinds of missions

5:39

that it needs to conduct in the future wars,

5:41

that will go badly for the United States.

5:44

And particularly

5:45

in the current era of great power competition,

5:48

Russia is at war in Ukraine. There are concerns

5:50

that could spill beyond Ukraine's

5:52

borders potentially. And of course,

5:54

the increasing tension between the United

5:56

States and China that could spill

5:59

over into conflict. at some point. And

6:01

if the US military is not big enough, it's

6:03

not trained well enough, it doesn't have enough

6:05

people to meet those missions, it

6:07

not

6:07

only means that we'll be losing more

6:10

lives in the course of those conflicts, but ultimately

6:12

the United States might not win those wars.

6:14

And again, that's something that concerns

6:16

the Department of Defense greatly. So,

6:19

Nora, why are we experiencing

6:21

a recruitment crisis at this point?

6:24

It's a great question, and it is so hard to answer

6:26

because there are many, many different trends

6:29

that are all happening at the same time. You can't

6:32

actually figure out the primary

6:34

cause or the two biggest causes because there's just

6:36

so much that's going on at

6:38

once. The easiest ones to understand

6:41

are legacies of the pandemic.

6:43

Standardized test scores are down not just in

6:46

the United States, but across the world. The

6:48

military has its own standardized

6:50

tests that you take called the ASVAB that

6:53

determines your aptitude to

6:55

serve in the military. And those scores

6:57

have fallen just as many other

6:59

types of standardized test scores have fallen. So

7:01

fewer people are making the entry requirements

7:04

on that standardized test. Similarly,

7:06

there are a lot more people who aren't making the

7:09

fitness requirements, who are overweight,

7:11

which the military has certain guidelines

7:13

about body fat and weight that need to be

7:15

met in order to come in. Those

7:18

ones are considered temporary.

7:20

They may be

7:21

happening for a while because many years of

7:23

school kids were affected by the pandemic. And

7:26

there are some things that the services are already

7:28

doing to try to help recruits

7:30

who are otherwise eligible

7:32

make those things up. The Army started,

7:34

the other services are following something called the future

7:36

soldier preparatory course, which is essentially

7:39

coming together

7:40

and getting test assistance and

7:42

physical fitness assistance so that otherwise

7:44

eligible recruits can meet those standards. So

7:47

those are the most obvious ones that

7:49

come out recently. Okay,

7:51

so one problem, obviously, if

7:53

I understand you correctly, is the percentage

7:56

of people in the target age

7:58

range who are eligible

7:59

to enlist. And

8:02

I've seen numbers suggesting that it

8:04

was previously around 29% of the target age range,

8:08

which I assume is somewhere between 18 and 24, 25. And that number

8:10

is now down to just 23%.

8:16

That's right. And that was a precipitous

8:18

drop in one year between 2021

8:20

and 2022. That's a huge amount

8:23

to go down in just one year. And that's why I

8:25

said, of course, everyone in the military,

8:28

everyone who thinks about the defense of this country

8:30

is concerned about that because for that to

8:32

happen in one year is a tremendous, tremendous

8:34

drop. Okay.

8:35

And I imagine a second potential

8:38

problem is what do the numbers

8:40

show you about the percentage of people who

8:42

are actually interested

8:44

in signing up with the military?

8:46

Right. And in all volunteer force, it's not just

8:48

who's eligible. The eligibility

8:50

is the baseline. That's the pool you can

8:53

draw from. But again, we haven't

8:55

required people to serve in the military since 1973,

8:58

when the draft was abolished. And so everybody

9:01

who comes into the military has to want

9:03

to serve. And there, I think

9:05

we are seeing the effects of the

9:08

one Achilles heel of the all volunteer

9:10

force. The all volunteer force

9:12

has been tremendous in almost every

9:14

way. It has created a US military

9:16

that is professional, that is among the most

9:19

capable in the world that has people

9:21

who want

9:21

to be there and who are

9:23

committed to their service. The

9:26

one downside of the all volunteer force

9:28

is that it has separated military service

9:31

from the ordinary citizenry. Not

9:34

something that was ever intended by

9:36

getting rid of the draft, but as that has evolved

9:38

over 50 years, what we've seen is

9:40

a huge and ever widening

9:43

gap between the military and the society

9:45

that it serves. So right now, for

9:48

example, a third of the people who

9:50

choose to serve in the military have a parent

9:52

who served in the military.

9:55

Up to 80% of people coming in have

9:57

a family member broader than just a parent.

10:00

who serves in the military. So even

10:02

though about 1% of the population

10:05

serves in the US military, it's

10:07

the same 1% generation on

10:09

generation. It is not evenly distributed

10:11

around the country. And what that means is

10:13

that there's a whole wide

10:14

population of young people out there

10:17

who

10:17

will never meet a veteran, who will never know

10:19

anybody who serves in the military and

10:21

are likely to never consider military

10:24

service as one of their options just because

10:26

they're never exposed to people in the military.

10:29

And so we're seeing the consequences

10:31

of that coming home to roost, if

10:33

you will, on the eligibility

10:35

part.

10:36

So what I hear you saying, Nora, is

10:38

that when you look at the all-volunteer

10:41

force, in many ways, the professional military,

10:43

it is to some extent become a

10:46

family business, attracting

10:48

most of its recruits from people who are

10:50

already involved in the operation.

10:52

That's right. And many people have called

10:54

it exactly that. There are some really

10:56

deep philosophical problems with that, such

10:58

as what does it mean if you're a citizen

11:00

of the United States to assume that someone

11:03

else is going to serve in times of crisis?

11:05

That's a pretty deep obligation

11:08

of citizenship to serve your country. But

11:10

even more than those bigger philosophical questions,

11:13

it's become problematic because the military

11:16

has relied so heavily on essentially

11:18

one type of person to come in,

11:21

people who have a family member in. And

11:23

I think one of the reason that you're seeing

11:26

a crisis now in military recruiting

11:28

is the more you rely on any single

11:31

segment of the US population, the more

11:33

vulnerable it is if that segment, for

11:35

whatever reason, becomes unable or

11:37

unwilling to serve in the military.

11:39

And I think that that is what we're seeing

11:41

today. Too many Americans just have no idea

11:44

about the military and would never even consider

11:46

service in the military. So when

11:48

you have these broader trends that are affecting eligibility,

11:52

and that are even affecting people who do

11:54

have that family connection, their willingness

11:56

to serve in the military, that's how you get a crisis.

11:58

And it becomes very difficult.

11:59

to dig your way out of that because

12:02

you have to overcome 50 years of that separation

12:05

between average Americans and the military.

12:08

Norah, I want to come back to the big philosophical

12:11

question, maybe at the end of our conversation.

12:14

But for right now, I want to drill down on

12:16

this question of interest

12:18

in what are the factors that might

12:21

be sort of tilting people away

12:23

from thinking about the military

12:26

as a life choice. I take it one

12:28

factor is tight labor markets.

12:30

That is always the case, but

12:32

it is a particularly strange

12:35

with the current economy that we're in, because

12:37

we have tight labor markets, but we

12:39

also have relatively high unemployment

12:42

given those tight labor markets. In

12:45

the past, military recruiters have

12:47

known what to do when the economy

12:49

is strong, when people have more good

12:51

civilian job options, the way that they've

12:54

been able to compensate with that is by raising

12:56

enlistment bonuses and other very

12:58

targeted financial means that will help

13:00

them compete in a competitive job

13:02

market. But the old tricks

13:05

of how you manage recruitment in a strong

13:07

economy aren't working because this is

13:09

not the same type of strong economy that

13:12

we had before, even though the labor market

13:14

is tight, getting people into the right types

13:16

of jobs and the jobs that they're qualified for

13:19

is a problem in the civilian economy right

13:21

now. And so it is also a problem

13:23

in the military recruitment area.

13:25

What I've also heard Nora is that

13:27

many people who are in the

13:30

military are no longer encouraging

13:33

other people to follow their footsteps

13:36

because of their own dissatisfaction

13:39

with military life, the demands it

13:41

makes. To what extent is that a real

13:43

or significant issue?

13:45

Again, it's very hard to know the

13:47

precise causes of what's affecting

13:50

people's decision to join, but I do

13:52

think that there is some evidence that that is

13:54

what's happening. Part of that is tied

13:56

to the fact that Americans overall

13:59

are

13:59

less confident in US institutions

14:02

that they used to be. And the US military

14:05

has particularly suffered in that. Americans

14:07

don't have a lot of faith in any public institution,

14:10

frankly. And the military still is

14:12

one of the two highest ones that Americans

14:14

say that they have confidence in, that they believe

14:16

in. But the numbers, if you go back and

14:18

look at the survey data across time, what

14:21

was a very favorable rating is still

14:23

favorable, but dropped 20 percentage

14:25

points in the past two years. The

14:27

trend has not been the military's friend. Yeah,

14:30

on how the American public views the military

14:33

and whether they think that the military is

14:35

a good institution in the United States. Why

14:37

do you think that is?

14:39

Well, I think there are a number of things going on. And again, we

14:41

can only guess because figuring out the precise

14:43

reason is impossible because so many

14:45

things are happening at the same time. My

14:48

own view looking at this is that part of this

14:50

among the American people

14:51

more broadly, not just those in uniform,

14:54

the American people are very ignorant

14:56

about the military. And when they looked

14:58

at the way that the U.S. withdrew from

15:00

Afghanistan, not the decision whether

15:02

or not to withdraw, but when they looked

15:04

on TV and saw those hurt-wrenching

15:07

pictures of Afghans trying to flee the country,

15:09

the U.S. military looked incompetent

15:12

to a lot of Americans. Now, that's not actually

15:14

a fair characterization. There were reasons,

15:17

very good military reasons why that was an incredibly

15:19

complicated military operation.

15:21

But again, most Americans don't know

15:24

that, and I think that shook a lot of faith in

15:26

the military. I also think

15:28

in the aftermath of the Black

15:31

Lives Matters protests in the summer

15:33

of 2020, when there were lots

15:35

of people in a lot of cities, there were protests

15:38

and there were mobilizations of people

15:40

in uniforms

15:41

with riot gear with very heavy

15:44

weaponry on the streets, it was

15:46

almost never the U.S. military. The

15:48

National Guard was called out in two of those

15:50

protests, which is a very small

15:53

number of the places where this happened. But

15:55

people don't know a lot about the military. The

15:58

federal law enforcement agents, which is well known,

15:59

what they primarily were and local police

16:02

were not wearing identifying markers. And

16:04

so I think a lot of Americans assumed that

16:06

the military was out on the streets when in fact

16:08

they were not, but I think that affects

16:11

the confidence of a lot of Americans.

16:14

The issue that you raise though about the views

16:16

among people in the military is obviously

16:18

a critical one because, you know,

16:20

it is the children and family members of people

16:23

who serve who are most

16:23

likely to want to serve. That

16:26

I think was affected by the withdrawal from

16:28

Afghanistan. I think that many,

16:30

particularly veterans of the Afghan war

16:33

felt that the Biden administration's decision

16:35

betrayed the US promise to never

16:38

leave people behind. There were many, many

16:40

Afghans who helped and supported the US effort,

16:42

who were not able to get out. And I know

16:44

that was very traumatic, that that's not too

16:47

strong a word for many of the veterans who

16:49

served there. And I think you may be seeing

16:51

that coloring

16:52

their willingness to advise their

16:55

kids or other family members

16:57

to join.

16:58

Nor what do you think about arguments that

17:00

the willingness of some people, particularly people

17:03

from conservative families to volunteer

17:06

for the military has gone down

17:09

either because they're opposed

17:11

to being vaccinated if they go into

17:14

the military and also because

17:16

it has been argued that the military

17:19

is more focused on being woke

17:21

than being warriors. How do you

17:23

react to that? Well,

17:24

that's a narrative that the Republicans,

17:26

particularly in Congress, are pushing very

17:29

hard. In fact, Marco Rubio

17:31

last year, and I forget who his co-author was

17:33

from the House, published a report that was called explicitly,

17:36

Woke Warriors, which says that the military

17:38

is focusing too much on social issues

17:40

and diversity and not war fighting.

17:43

There is no objective evidence

17:45

for that. And in fact, the fact that retention

17:48

is higher than it's ever been actually

17:50

suggests that that is exactly

17:52

the opposite of what's happening. More people are

17:55

satisfied with the military and want to stay

17:57

in than ever before, which is not what you'd expect.

18:00

if those arguments about wokeness were really

18:02

undermining military effectiveness.

18:05

That said, the narrative plays

18:07

very strongly in conservative Republican

18:09

circles, and because, at

18:12

least in the past, that there has

18:14

been evidence that many people in the U.S.

18:16

military tend to be on the right of

18:19

the American political spectrum, and that there

18:21

has been a lot of support for now

18:23

former President Trump in the military, I

18:26

do think that narrative is having an effect,

18:28

even though I think it is objectively false. People

18:31

believe it, and therefore

18:32

it has consequences, and I do think

18:34

that is something that is challenging

18:36

the desires of people who might otherwise

18:39

be willing to serve if they buy into that narrative.

18:41

Norah, what about arguments I hear from the

18:44

opposite end of the political spectrum that

18:46

people don't want to sign up for the

18:49

U.S. military, because the U.S. military

18:52

has a problem with right-wing extremism?

18:54

So

18:55

there's very little evidence that that

18:57

is true. I want to be clear, there are

18:59

some extremists in the U.S. military, but

19:01

the military as

19:02

a whole is doing a tremendous

19:04

number of things to try to ensure that

19:06

there is no extremist behavior

19:09

that

19:09

goes on in the military. They are very

19:11

on top of that, and leadership is prioritizing

19:14

that as an issue. But I

19:16

do think that there is a perception of that,

19:18

again, more on the left side of the political

19:20

spectrum. The perception is that it's much

19:23

bigger than it actually

19:24

is. It is actually a relatively minor

19:26

problem in the military, certainly

19:28

compared to what it seems in broader civilian

19:31

society. What you also hear

19:33

from people on the left, though, is that they

19:35

don't want to join the military because

19:37

they're afraid they're going to get hurt, and

19:39

in particular, women say that they're afraid

19:41

of being sexually assaulted or

19:44

otherwise harmed. And

19:46

there, unfortunately, there is some

19:48

truth behind those views. There are statistics

19:51

that show that military sexual

19:53

assault continues to be a problem, especially

19:56

in the aftermath

19:57

of the Vanessa Guillen case,

19:59

who was murdered in Texas

20:02

and where the army chain

20:04

of command there did not cover itself

20:06

in glory and how it handled that on the

20:08

base. I think that has had an effect

20:10

as well. Although I think in relative

20:13

terms, the effect is minor because people

20:15

on the left have generally been less likely to want

20:17

to join the military. So I

20:19

do think it's affecting their views, but they were among

20:21

the people who are what the military calls less propensed,

20:24

less likely to want to join. So the impact

20:27

of that may actually be less than

20:29

the impact

20:30

of these views on the right because those

20:32

were the people who are considered more likely to join the

20:34

military, if that makes sense.

20:36

It does. But Nora, why do you think it is

20:38

that the military has had such

20:41

trouble getting on top of the

20:43

problem of sexual harassment

20:45

and assault?

20:45

I think there are a number of reasons why. I think

20:48

the biggest one is that the US military

20:50

resisted, in my opinion, for

20:52

far too long, taking the authority

20:55

to prosecute those terrible

20:57

incidents away from the commanders

21:00

and kept it in the military chain of command

21:02

for too long. I think early on

21:04

when it became obvious that this was a growing problem,

21:07

it was understandable. Commanders have

21:09

responsibility for their troops, and there's a reason

21:11

why they have the ability to punish

21:13

them and keep many things within the

21:15

chain of command for punishment at their discretion.

21:18

But after years and years when the problem was

21:20

clearly not getting better, I think they missed

21:22

an opportunity to do that. And in fact, they

21:25

only did it in the past year because Congress

21:27

finally forced them to do that. Legislation

21:29

finally passed that took the authority to investigate

21:33

and prosecute, I should say, the most serious

21:35

allegations of sexual harassment

21:37

and sexual assault away from commanders.

21:40

So that is getting

21:41

better, but that will take some time to

21:43

play out. And unfortunately, it is not going as quickly

21:45

as many people would like or that it should be

21:48

going.

21:49

So, Nora, we've talked about the nature of the problem.

21:51

We've talked about the consequences of the

21:53

problem. We've talked about the reasons

21:56

for the problem,

21:57

that is the crisis in military recruitment.

21:59

Now, I'd like to talk a little bit about

22:02

what could be done to address it. Now,

22:04

obviously, the problem could take care of

22:07

itself if you had a growing

22:09

population of people

22:11

in the target age range because

22:13

even if your percentage were falling

22:16

but the pool was growing, you could

22:18

still end up

22:19

on the right side of the equation. However,

22:21

that's not the case for the United States.

22:24

That age group, 15 to 24, is actually declining. I

22:29

don't think it's scheduled to reverse anytime

22:31

soon. That means that

22:34

you've got to find some way to increase

22:36

both the body of people who are eligible

22:40

as well as the interest in the military.

22:42

You've mentioned one

22:44

military program designed

22:46

to do that so far, and that's the Army's

22:49

Future Soldier Repairary course. But

22:52

what is it the US military can do

22:55

to increase the percentage of people who

22:57

can meet in the US military to meet

22:59

its own standards? Yeah, it's a great question, and that's

23:01

what the service leaders are focusing on in the

23:04

shortest term because the way that you can bring more people in

23:06

quickly

23:06

is to have them meet

23:10

those standards. Frankly, I think that part of what they need

23:12

to do is to look at all of those standards and

23:15

determine which ones are vitally essential and which ones

23:18

are not. Nobody

23:20

is in favor of having people who are unqualified coming into the

23:22

military, but there are

23:25

some that, in my view, make very, very

23:28

little sense.

23:29

Walk me through those.

23:30

For example, if you

23:32

have a mental health condition that

23:34

is relatively minor, like anxiety

23:36

or depression, and you are on medication

23:38

for that, you are not allowed to join the military,

23:41

period. You can ask for a waiver that

23:43

would allow you to serve, but waivers can take

23:45

months and months and months, and recruits

23:47

have to find something else to do in the meantime, and

23:50

they usually find other jobs and don't come back

23:52

to the military. We also know

23:54

that those types of mental health problems

23:57

exploded

23:58

among, well, really among all Americans.

23:59

but particularly among that target

24:02

audience of young people during the pandemic.

24:04

So fewer and fewer people are meeting the

24:07

standards of not having

24:09

any mental health issues, even

24:11

though they have what medically would be considered

24:14

relatively minor and treatable issues

24:16

such as depression and anxiety. So

24:19

one of the things that I've argued that the military should

24:21

do is instead of having that

24:24

be automatic exclusion, oh, and I should

24:26

add, if you develop those conditions while you're

24:28

in the military, you can absolutely

24:29

stay. So you don't get booted

24:32

out of the military if you develop

24:34

anxiety. Right, exactly. And it can be

24:36

treated by a doctor. The same standard

24:39

should apply to people entering the military.

24:41

If it is something that a doctor certifies is

24:43

not

24:43

a problem that affects someone's likelihood

24:46

of

24:46

military service. My view is they

24:48

should be allowed to serve. Obviously, there

24:50

are going to be people with more serious mental health conditions.

24:53

We're not talking about those types of people, but

24:55

the most common ones that people

24:57

are allowed to stay in the military with

25:00

should be the eligibility requirements

25:03

as well.

25:04

So what other eligibility requirements

25:06

do you see, Nora, that in your

25:08

view should be modified?

25:10

So this one is quite controversial,

25:13

but I think given where the nation

25:15

is on this issue, a minor

25:18

past incidences of marijuana use

25:20

may need to no longer exclude

25:23

people from serving in the military. I

25:25

want to emphasize I said minor meaning one

25:27

or two usages, rather than someone

25:29

who is addicted or anything like that.

25:32

The fact is that we have a patchwork of laws

25:35

in this country

25:35

where smoking marijuana is legal

25:37

in many states. 21. It's

25:39

not federally legal, but most

25:42

teenagers aren't thinking about that. If the state

25:44

says they can do it, that's what they're going to be thinking about.

25:47

The US military absolutely

25:48

needs to remain drug free, but

25:50

it doesn't need to remain drug free from

25:53

people in high school. If

25:55

they've had one or two usages in

25:57

the past, that should

25:58

not disqualify them from service.

25:59

as long as they continue with, frankly,

26:02

what the troops that are in the military get, which

26:04

is random drug testing to ensure that

26:06

they are drug free. But right now, if

26:09

you have examples of marijuana use

26:11

in your past, you are automatically stricken

26:13

from being able to serve. And people aged 12, 13,

26:16

14 make bad decisions.

26:18

We know this. If it's not a pattern of usage,

26:21

my personal view is we should be

26:23

allowing those people to serve as long as,

26:25

as with other folks, we ensure that they remain

26:27

drug free once they join the military.

26:30

I should note that in the 21 states that

26:32

have legalized marijuana and

26:34

also the District of Columbia,

26:36

they're home to roughly half of

26:38

the people between the ages of 15 and 24. So

26:42

that's a very sizable portion

26:44

of your pool of applicants. Exactly.

26:47

And who, frankly, are not going to care about the nuances

26:49

between federal law and state law.

26:52

Now, what about things like rules on tattoos?

26:56

The military has liberalized a lot of those

26:58

things in recent years, both

27:00

as a retention tool as well

27:02

as recruitment. Tattoos became very

27:05

popular among young folks in the past

27:07

two decades. For a long time, any tattoo

27:09

was considered disqualifying.

27:12

You were not allowed to serve in the military if you had any.

27:15

All of the services have changed that. So as long

27:17

as they're not visible in a way that

27:19

interferes with their service. In other

27:21

words, if it's not like gang tattoos or something

27:23

along those lines, then people are allowed

27:26

to

27:26

serve. They've also changed

27:28

some restrictions on hairstyles

27:30

that may not sound like a big deal, but particularly

27:33

for black women, some of those

27:35

restrictions were a really big deal. And

27:37

so they've loosened those in ways that

27:39

should enable more black women to be able

27:42

to serve. And those are just a couple of

27:44

examples of a lot of the liberalizing things

27:47

that services have done in order

27:49

to really rethink

27:51

which of the entry standards really

27:53

are no kidding standards that

27:55

must be enforced and which ones

27:57

are simply traditions that are no longer relevant.

28:00

today. Nobody wants people to serve who

28:02

can't do the work, who can't be

28:04

reliable and trustworthy.

28:06

But these standards tend to accrete

28:08

over time without anybody going back and saying,

28:10

hey, is that actually helping us achieve

28:12

that objective or not? And frankly,

28:15

one of the other things that's contributing

28:16

to people being ineligible,

28:18

this one is very counterintuitive,

28:21

but the military at the beginning of the

28:23

fiscal year instituted a new electronic

28:26

health record system called MHS

28:28

Genesis. And what they're finding

28:30

is that more people who are recruits

28:33

as they submit electronic health

28:34

records, more people are

28:37

being flagged for disqualifications because

28:39

their comprehensive medical history

28:41

is available. What this seems to

28:44

suggest is that perhaps recruiters

28:46

were encouraging applicants

28:47

not to put down their full medical histories

28:50

on paper in the past. So

28:52

although we can say that we're having more

28:54

people coming in who are not meeting those requirements,

28:57

some of them, we may not have known it,

28:59

but people have been hiding certain minor

29:02

medical conditions for a long time that

29:04

are just now becoming visible with the electronic

29:06

health records, which is why I think it's again,

29:09

the services need to scrub every

29:11

single requirement to make sure

29:13

that it is still valid and necessary

29:15

for 21st century combat.

29:19

What about efforts, Nora, to make service

29:22

in the military more appealing,

29:24

whether by changing how

29:27

military life plays out or

29:29

by changing people's perceptions

29:32

of the military through things like

29:34

advertisement and movies?

29:37

So all of the military services

29:39

have also tried to address

29:42

quality of life standards, not just because

29:44

of the recruitment and retention issues, but

29:46

also because it's the right thing to do. And so

29:49

most of the services are now offering

29:50

programs where in

29:52

exchange for longer enlistment contracts,

29:55

they could be guaranteed to stay on

29:58

the same base

29:58

that they won't have to move it.

29:59

every two or three years. Spousal employment

30:02

is a big issue. It's very hard to have a career

30:05

as a military spouse when you're changing

30:06

your bases all of the time.

30:08

So that's one thing that they've done

30:10

as just one example. There are a ton

30:12

of things that they're trying to do on that quality of life

30:14

issue. But the hardest one

30:16

is the one that you mentioned at the end, which is how do you

30:19

get more propensity among the American

30:21

people? How do you get more people interested

30:23

in serving in the military? And

30:25

again, that's an incredibly tough question because

30:28

we got to the place where we are today after 50

30:30

years of the all volunteer force and the

30:33

separation of the civilian

30:35

society with the military. None

30:37

of the ways

30:38

in which the services are trying to tackle that

30:40

are going to pay off in the short term. None

30:42

of them are gonna solve the recruiting crisis for next

30:45

year. But they are still, they are aware

30:47

that they have to

30:47

do many more things to try to

30:50

get more people interested in the military.

30:52

They're doing new types of advertising

30:54

and trying to target young folks. In

30:57

particular, the army brought back this year its advertising

31:00

campaign called Be All You Can

31:02

Be. Still one of the best. Exactly,

31:04

people who are your age

31:05

and my age will remember this from being kids

31:08

and seeing the ads. The ads themselves are updated,

31:10

but the tagline is back as a way

31:12

to try to motivate folks. So

31:15

there are efforts like that, but also

31:17

efforts to ensure that

31:19

populations around the country, particularly

31:22

in urban areas and along the coasts, the

31:24

places where the propensity to serve, the likelihood

31:27

of serving is lowest, to get

31:29

people to know the US military. The

31:31

army is doing programs, for example, in 15

31:33

cities around the country

31:35

where recruiters are being

31:38

connected with operational

31:40

units so that when they have

31:42

an event or they can have an open house, they

31:44

can bring actual soldiers and equipment

31:47

to a place so that Americans who

31:49

might not otherwise have any exposure to

31:51

the military can talk to people in the military,

31:53

can see the equipment, can develop

31:56

some form of connection and get a sense of

31:58

what it is the US military. does. Again,

32:01

that's not going to help in the short term.

32:03

Those types of efforts are absolutely

32:06

necessary, but they're going to take a while

32:08

to bear fruit. So the services

32:10

are trying their best to balance

32:12

the short term dealing with the eligibility

32:15

crisis, which is the way to get people

32:17

in the fastest is to

32:19

have more people meet the criteria. While

32:22

they're also trying for the longer term

32:24

to increase American awareness of the military

32:26

to make military service an

32:29

option that seems valuable to

32:31

more Americans.

32:32

Nor, I want to come back to the philosophical

32:35

question about the desirability

32:38

of having an all-volunteer force.

32:41

As you've noted, one of the consequences

32:45

of the all-volunteer force is that

32:47

much of the burden of

32:49

US military service has

32:52

fallen on a small percentage of

32:54

the population and increasingly

32:56

over time, those people who

32:59

have served are really separated

33:01

from those who didn't.

33:02

That's right. And I'll just say, as I look

33:05

out at people who have jumped

33:07

into the presidential race here

33:09

in the United States, I don't see

33:12

contenders who themselves have

33:14

had military service. So

33:16

as successful as the all-volunteer force

33:19

has been, is it something

33:22

that we should continue

33:23

to stick by? Well, look, I think the practical

33:26

reality is that's what we're going to

33:28

be doing for the foreseeable future,

33:30

unless there's some existential shock

33:32

to the nation like 9-11 was. I

33:35

write and teach with my colleague, a retired

33:37

Army three-star named Dave Barno. Great guy.

33:39

He likes to joke that there are only three groups

33:42

in Washington

33:42

that oppose a draft. They're the Democrats,

33:44

Republicans, and independents. Fair point. Nobody

33:47

wants to go back to a draft. And so I don't

33:49

think we will be going back to a draft again

33:51

unless some 9-11 or other massive

33:53

event happens where the political dynamics

33:56

could change overnight as a result. So

33:58

I don't think that's what we're going to be doing.

33:59

think that's likely to happen.

34:02

But what it means when most Americans

34:04

don't think they're going to serve in the military or

34:06

there's no scenario under which they could

34:09

be called to serve in the military, it's

34:11

a problem

34:11

for the military in a number

34:13

of ways. It's not good if you go back to basic

34:16

principles of government for the military to

34:18

see itself as something separate from

34:20

the population that it serves. And

34:22

there's evidence that there is some amount of that

34:24

going on with people who deployed

34:27

six, seven, eight

34:28

times to these wars feeling

34:30

like they're better Americans than those

34:32

who didn't volunteer. That's not true, by

34:35

the way. They should be absolutely

34:37

commended for their service and praised for

34:39

it, but it doesn't make them inherently superior

34:41

to the rest of American society. But

34:44

frankly,

34:44

the much bigger danger than that is

34:46

on the civilian side and how it

34:48

shapes how Americans think about war.

34:51

And what that does, to be brutally honest, it makes

34:53

it too easy for Americans to decide the

34:55

nation needs to go to war.

34:56

There was a survey that was done

34:59

in December of 2015,

35:01

which was one month after the attacks

35:03

on the Paris nightclubs that was really

35:05

the first international attack that

35:08

was the group that claimed responsibility for it was

35:10

ISIS. It was their

35:10

first big international attack.

35:12

And so when that was very

35:14

much in the headlines and everybody would have been aware

35:16

of that having just happened, they did

35:18

a survey of young people and they asked, do

35:21

you think that the United States should

35:23

go to war against the Islamic State? And

35:26

about 60% of the young Americans

35:28

who responded said yes. They then

35:30

asked the same

35:31

group of young people, if the president

35:34

went on television and announced that there

35:36

was going to be this war against ISIS,

35:38

but that they needed more people to fight

35:40

it, would you volunteer?

35:43

And 62% said no, they wouldn't.

35:45

That is profoundly unhealthy when

35:48

the risks and burdens of

35:50

military service are not evenly distributed

35:53

throughout the population for all

35:55

of the horrible ways in which

35:57

the Vietnam draft was enacted. It

36:00

did in a sense work

36:03

in the way that it's supposed to, although over

36:05

too long a period of

36:06

time, in that eventually

36:08

the unpopularity of the war among the

36:10

American public and the fact that they were engaged

36:12

in that because their sons and daughters were being

36:15

drafted, that gave them a huge

36:17

stake in the conflict. And ultimately it was

36:19

the lack of US public support that led to

36:21

the end of the war, even if it was imperfect

36:24

and too many people died along the way. That

36:27

mechanism no longer exists. There

36:30

were no protests at all when the US

36:32

went to war in Iraq, which was a much more

36:34

controversial war, which a lot of people

36:36

didn't think was justified, but

36:38

they didn't take to the streets in protest. They

36:41

might've changed how they voted, but they didn't take

36:43

to the streets to force a change because it wasn't going

36:45

to affect them. It wasn't going to affect their families.

36:48

And again, that is not

36:48

healthy. It makes

36:49

the American citizenry too likely to decide

36:52

to go to war when it's somebody else's

36:54

kids, not your kids, that are

36:56

going to bear that burden of military service

36:59

and the risks inherent in that. So

37:01

philosophically, having separated

37:04

the expectation of military service

37:06

from citizenship for all practical purposes,

37:08

I find very disturbing, both philosophically

37:10

to what it means to be a citizen, but

37:13

also practically in that it can have these terrible

37:15

consequences of having the country

37:17

go to war more often without

37:20

sharing the sacrifices of that war

37:22

more broadly.

37:24

On that sobering note, I'll close

37:26

up the president's inbox for this week.

37:29

My guest has been Nora Ben-Sahal, a

37:31

visiting professor of strategic studies

37:33

and senior fellow of the Merrill Center

37:36

at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International

37:38

Studies. Nora, thank you for joining

37:40

me. Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed this

37:42

very much. Please subscribe to the president's

37:45

inbox and Apple podcasts, Google

37:47

podcasts, Spotify, or wherever

37:49

you listen. In Leibnizur review, we

37:51

love the feedback. The publications mentioned

37:54

in this episode and a transcript of our

37:56

conversation are available on the

37:58

podcast page for the president. inbox

38:01

on CFR.org. As

38:03

always, opinions expressed on the President's Inbox

38:06

are solely those of the host or

38:08

our guests, not of CFR, which

38:10

takes no institutional positions on

38:12

matters of policy. Today's episode

38:15

was produced by Esther Fang, with Director

38:17

of Podcasting, Gabrielle Sierra. Special

38:20

thanks go out to Michelle Carrillo for

38:22

research assistance. This is Jim Lindsay.

38:25

Thanks for listening.