The Army is Having Trouble Recruiting Troops

According to a ZeroHedge report, the U.S. army is aiming to have 500,000 active duty personnel by 2020.

Although the U.S. has maintained a relatively restrained foreign policy under President Donald Trump, saber-rattling has been on the uptick near the Strait of Hormuz and the South China Sea as America confronts geopolitical rivals in Iran and China. So by 2020, the U.S. Army hopes to boost its numbers by to 500,000.

The Army Times claims that the army is having problems recruiting troops due to an increasing number of “unhealthy, ineligible millennials.” Acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy asserted that, “it’s a difficult market because it’s a very healthy job market.” He also opined, “this environment is as challenging as we’ve faced- 3.6% unemployment. We have no benchmark historically for the all-volunteer force.”

 McCarthy revealed to the Times that achieving this recruitment goal by the end of 2019 would be pushing it. The Acting Army Secretary said, “we are on target, but it’s close.” However, McCarthy does not see this goal as a walk in the park. He added, “we, statistically, can make it, but we’re going to have to run through the finish line-undoubtedly a full sprint.”

The Army Secretary stated that Army officials are tapping into municipalities across the country to increase recruitment. In the midst of this, army leadership continues to scratch its head at how the booming economy is stifling the recruitment of army troops. They also recognize that other factors are at play when it comes to lagging recruitment. 

McCarthy believes that the army’s failure to recruit is “coupled with all the other factors we talk about all the time: obesity, mental health, challenges with law enforcement. Things of that nature that would require waivers.”

In all honesty, the problems that the Army is currently facing would not get so much coverage if America had a more non-interventionist approach to foreign policy that actually pursued national defense. Under this kind of foreign policy, there wouldn’t be a need for massive military resources, nor would the Army struggle to meet its recruitment numbers. 

Bringing America back to a restrained foreign policy is easier said than done. Powerful interest groups like the military-industrial complex aren’t going away any time soon and still have tremendous sway in Washington D.C. This is the actual Deep State, and it strives to perpetuate itself in power no matter which presidents or members of Congress are in charge.

That’s the purpose that military expansionists like national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo serve in the Trump Administration.

By pushing for regime change in Iran and Venezuela despite Trump’s campaign to put America first, Bolton and Pompeo seek to undermine non-interventionism and put the country back on its usual neoconservative programming. Their presence poses an existential threat to the president’s restrained foreign policy vision and should remind libertarians that Washington D.C. needs a cultural and political facelift before any change is made.