U.S. Military Readiness: Are we really ready?

Recruiting is in decline, and most of Gen Z is ineligible for service. The U.S. military is at risk of being unable to answer the call to the country's defense.

Feb 09, 2024

As currently postured, the U.S. military is at significant risk of not being able to defend America’s vital national interests.

— The Heritage Foundation (2024) 1

Right now, the United States military is either engaged in, actively supporting or deployed in the proximity of multiple dangerous “hot spots” around the globe.

The war between Israel and Palestine/Hamas has spilled over to the wider Middle East. For the most part, conflicts have been confined to tit-for-tat attacks between Iran-backed militias in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and the U.S. and Israel.

According to Reuters, since Oct. 7 there have been 150-plus Iranian-backed attacks on U.S. troops (that we know of) conducted from a distance by ground, air and sea. However, the shadow war with Teheran is trending dangerously close to escalation and direct confrontation.

Then there’s the stalemate in Ukraine and the specter of further Russian antagonism. The war has laid bare the limited U.S. inventories of equipment, munitions, and supplies as well as the limitations of the industrial base that will be required to replenish them.2

Looming in the East are tensions with China and its possible aggression toward Taiwan and Hong Kong. And, as always, terrorism can strike from any point on the globe.

Defense experts have noted that these numerous global “hot spots” have overextended resources and eroded the military’s capabilities to effectively defend the country’s interests. To defend these interests effectively on a global scale, the United States needs a military force of sufficient size: what is known in the Pentagon as “capacity.” At present, all four main branches’ capacities are rated anywhere from “very weak” to “marginal.”3

Compounding the problem is ambiguous and fluctuating U.S. foreign policy and wildly shifting security questions.

All of this begs the question: If someone picks a fight, with us or a NATO ally, are we ready to rumble? And for the future?

Answer: Almost certainly not.

The reasons why are disconcerting.

Future warfare: The best and brightest

When most civilians think about military defense, they think about FA-18s, drones, or giant, hulking ships and big strong guys with guns. While relevant today, it is an outdated view of what the future of national defense should look like.

When most civilians think about military defense, they think about FA-18s, drones, or giant, hulking ships and big strong guys with guns. While important today, it is an outdated view of what the future military should look like.

In the future, protecting the country will not necessarily mean “boots on the ground” in foreign lands. It will require vision, coherence of policy, and massive upgrades in technology and intelligence gathering. It will focus less on firepower and more on the power of information for precision response to hostility. This includes coordinating command, control, communications, computing (using AI), cyber intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR).

Most of all, it needs the smartest people working together from the top down, not just in military command but also in foreign service (State Department, CIA), with key defense contractors and our overseas allies.

It needs Silicon Valley-level brainpower. It needs to enlist MIT’s, Stanford’s and Cal Tech’s best and brightest. It needs blue-chip recruits dedicated to the Red, White and Blue.

Given the current state of recruiting, we are failing miserably.

Recruiting: Looking for “A Few Good Men”

The military spends more than $3 billion annually on recruitment. This includes mass advertising and paying salaries to over 15,000 recruiters, as well as support staff, vehicles, rent, etc.

Unfortunately, three branches — the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force — are looking at another year of failing to meet their recruitment goals. Recruiting has been falling consistently for a decade.

Last year the Army invested $119 million in a targeted in-person campaign conducted at high schools and on college campuses. The Army spends about $15,000 to recruit one soldier on average and must recruit 80,000 to 90,000 new enlistments each year.

Yet in 2022, the Army missed its recruiting goal by 25 percent — roughly 15,000 soldiers.4 The final numbers aren’t in, but it is anticipated that 2023 will show a similar shortfall.

What about Gen Z?

The shocking reality

Three out of four Gen Z’ers are unfit for military service

Here’s a jarring fact: 77 percent of young Americans (age 17-24) are ineligible for military service.

Three out of four Gen Z’ers do not meet the basic standards — testing, mental and physical health, etc. — according to an analysis done by the Department of Defense.5

This is not about those wanting to serve. Most Americans in this age group can’t serve. They are unfit due to obesity, addiction, and mental health issues, especially depression and anxiety — so many that some are mockingly calling them Gen-Xanax.

They also have been raised with sedentary lifestyles — video games, phone scrolling, social media and participation trophies. As a group, they’ve been inflicted by gender confusion, hypersensitivity and the cultural sequestering of merit.

Not to mention that many of these young Americans seem loath to fight for their country. A recent Statista poll revealed only 16 percent of these young adults are “proud to be American.”6

Existential Threats

External and Internal

There are two key threats right now to the Pax Americana. One is that it’s under threat from China, Russia and Iran and the so-called axis of resistance.

But the second threat is internal, specifically within the emergent cultural elite and influential people who seem to believe that America as a superpower is bad. They believe the world is better off without America as the world’s hegemon.

The seeds of these sentiments have been sown largely in Academia and leaked over the past 20 years (or since 9/11) from campus into the public and private sectors. In general, the ideology views America as a predominant “oppressor” in geopolitics and global order over weaker and “marginalized” groups across the globe.

But the second threat is internal, specifically within the emergent cultural elite and influential people who seem to believe that America as a superpower is bad. They believe the world is better off without America as the world’s hegemon.

When it comes to America’s influence on political and social institutions, both foreign and domestic, as many as one in four recent college grads placidly say “Let it burn.” 7

It should come as no surprise that these influences have affected the military’s efforts to recruit and construct a viable defense force, especially when recruiting on campuses throughout the country. There is a significant cohort within America that is saying, sometimes overtly, “Who wants to fight for a country that I don’t believe in?”

And that needs to be fixed if we’re going to get this right.

Note: This short treatise does not address readiness to combat attacks on the homeland such as cyberattacks on key infrastructure, government security, or the monetary system. Nor does it address nuclear preparedness on a regional or global scale.

Heritage Foundation Report (Jan. 24, 2024)

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U.S. Military Readiness: Are we really ready?

Recruiting is in decline, and most of Gen Z is ineligible for service. The U.S. military is at risk of being unable to answer the call to the country's defense.

Future warfare: The best and brightest

When most civilians think about military defense, they think about FA-18s, drones, or giant, hulking ships and big strong guys with guns. While important today, it is an outdated view of what the future military should look like.

Recruiting: Looking for “A Few Good Men”

What about Gen Z?

The shocking reality

Existential Threats

External and Internal

But the second threat is internal, specifically within the emergent cultural elite and influential people who seem to believe that America as a superpower is bad. They believe the world is better off without America as the world’s hegemon.

Note: This short treatise does not address readiness to combat attacks on the homeland such as cyberattacks on key infrastructure, government security, or the monetary system. Nor does it address nuclear preparedness on a regional or global scale.

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