ACNSL Military Manning and National Security Issue Brief
By ACNSL Staff
1. Introduction:
America faces a national security threat in maintaining a sustainable, capable, reliable, and quality professional armed forces. Over the 50 years that America came to rely upon an All-Volunteer Force (AVF), the military and the public it serves have become increasingly remote from each other. Americans have, in many senses, forfeited responsibility for how the ranks are filled, how its military is used, and the experiences (good and bad) of those who serve. America needs to come together through a model like White House Conferences on Small Business to address this crisis and collaborate on the future of America’s Defense manpower approach.
In Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22), the Army missed its recruiting goal by 15,000 recruits (one quarter of its target). In FY23, the Army is expected to fall short again, likely resulting in a seven percent decrease in Active Army manning in a two-year period. While most other Services were able to rely upon applicants moving from the Delayed Entry Pool (DEP) to training in FY22 to achieve recruiting goals, they do not have sufficient volume in the DEP to do the same in FY23. All Services, except the Marine Corps and Space Force, expect to fall short of their goals.
This recruiting dynamic is unlikely to change, given a decline in America’s birthrate, an aging US population, slowed immigration, reduced propensity to serve, a decreased ability to rely upon children of military veterans to serve, and an anticipated long-term strong job market. Additionally, the physical and behavioral health of today’s young Americans is decidedly different from when the AVF began. Less than 30 percent of Americans 17 to 24 qualify for military without a waiver, and disqualifications usually relate to health, physical fitness, education, and a criminal history.
The Department of Defense (DoD) prefers “high-quality recruits,”(1) but while struggling to meet recruiting goals, DoD has allowed an increasing number of recruits who score in the next to lowest category to enlist or to enroll in training on the AFQT, retake the AFQT, and improve their scores. DoD does this while having no evidence individuals’ aptitudes increase as their scores do.
While draftees were paid relatively little, recruiters for an AVF must, to some extent, compete with the civilian job market. Military pay has risen substantially since the end of the draft. Market realities have forced the military to repeatedly raise pay and offer bonuses, and these incentives have certainly increased recruiting numbers. However, they are also extraordinarily expensive, e.g., in 2020, DoD spent about a quarter of its base budget (approximately $157 billion) on pay and benefits for SMs.
In many ways, it means military family members (2) are carrying more than their share of the burden for defending this nation, repeated deployments, time apart from loved ones, and constant relocation. Furthermore, they take on the moral consequences for choices they are forced to make in the oftentimes morally ambiguous military environment, some of which results in moral injuries when they must make choices in conflict with their personal values.
Family dynamics have changed since the end of conscription in the 1970s. Today’s economic realities mean most two-parent households rely upon two incomes, but military spouses often experience periods of unemployment related to a permanent change of station (PCS) move. Military spouses say their employment prospects are further adversely affected by unpredictable SM work hours and deployments. These often contribute to spousal unemployment and under-employment. Almost half of Active-Duty spouses are either employed full-time (30 percent) or part-time (17 percent), but their unemployment rate (20 percent) approaches seven times that of their civilian counterparts (3 percent). This is relatively unchanged from 2012. In 2023, RAND estimated that 25.8 percent of SMs were food insecure in 2020. Spousal unemployment and underemployment can contribute to this situation.
As DoD has had to shrink the Active force over the decades to afford the costs of the AVF, the military has had to increase reliance on the Reserve Components. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this meant multiple-year deployments and/or multiple deployments for many. Aside from the impact this had on RC families and employment, it also meant employers incurred significant cost outlays (e.g., temporary employees recruitment and training, continuing medical benefits, increased insurance premiums to cover medical conditions the Department of Veterans Affairs or the military refused to cover, shelving or delaying projects, etc.) while being held to the legal obligations designed for a Strategic Reserve but being used for an Operational Reserve. Neither Reservists/ Guardsmen, their families, nor RC employers were a party to discussions about the change from Strategic Reserves to Operational Reserves. From their perspective, it simply occurred by fiat, and the policy shift was invisible to the public.
The considerable reliance on multiple generations of military family members has exacerbated the chasm between most Americans’ life experience and those of persons who grow up on and go on to serve on military installations. It is concerning to know that most Americans do not know a service member. Only about one percent of the US population serves. Historically, having an installation or other military presence in a community has increased the likelihood that young people in those communities would serve. With the end of the Cold War, about 350 installations closed, mostly chiefly driven by Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). Unless those communities had a National Guard or Reserve presence, this meant less exposure and familiarity with the military. So, most Americans are ignorant about military life and what military SMs and their families experience. Correspondingly, they know little about the positives of military life.
2. Abstract:
Fifty years ago, the Gates Commission brought an end to the draft and launched a volunteer military. The commission overlooked some of the difficulties that have since emerged, and many changes have occurred that they could not have foreseen. These difficulties are at the heart of current and anticipated ongoing shortfalls in military recruiting. DoD cannot solve these challenges by itself. A new commission that collaborates with the public, communities, the military, government agencies, employers, industry, nonprofits, and American leaders is necessary if the US is to arrive at a long-term, viable, and formidable national defense manpower approach. The White House Conference on Small Business is a good model to emulate for how such a commission can be established, work, and deliver results.
3. Problem Statement:
America has a military manpower problem. The US faces a long-term national security threat in maintaining a sustainable, capable, reliable, and quality professional armed forces. The difficulties faced are not solvable for the long-term by better advertising, reducing quality, or further increasing pay and bonuses. This is not something DoD can solve by itself. Additionally, many of the influencing factors are societally based and need to be consistent with the will of the people, so public involvement in solving it is essential for a long-term viable approach.
4. Proposed Solution(s):
A two-pronged approach should be used to reconnect the military and the American public and to ensure a sustainable, formidable national security posture. Just as President Nixon used the Gates Commission to establish the All-Volunteer Force model, President Biden should immediately launch a new presidential commission on military manning and national security. While the commission’s work is underway, Congress should authorize and fund a series of conferences to engage the public in grassroots problem-solving for policy and legislative solutions to small business issues at the state, regional, and national levels. This should be modeled on the White House Conferences on Small Business. Adopting the model’s use of a commission with a supporting task force and staff to research, analyze, and prepare a laydown of the issues/ challenges, policy proposals, and draft legislation ensures American public vetting through a series of facilitated conferences. This model will bring together key elements of a traditional Total Defense posture: the public, communities, political leaders, employers, and those who serve to define how the Armed Forces will be manned in the future.
Application of the Solution
In the longstanding tradition of previous presidents, President Biden should establish a presidential commission on military manning and national security to address America’s military manning crisis. Such a commission would be established immediately via executive order and funded out of the administration’s budget or that of applicable executive agency budgets. Conferring with foundations, corporations, universities, veterans service organizations, policy planning groups, new media, federal and state agencies, employers, Service members and their family members, and veterans, the commission would examine the following:
• Military manning approaches (Active and Reserve Component).
• Military operational tempo and manning needs.
• Recruit testing and screening.
• Barriers to service and propensity to serve.
• Collaboration with industries and employers on credentialing, transitioning from service, and sharing of employees.
• Impact of deployments on employers and how to incentivize employers to hire and retain the Guard and Reserves.
• Veterans’ benefits, compensation, and treatment implications for military service and recruiting.
• Military leader and American future leader development.
• Flexible ways to serve.
• Attracting the best and brightest to serve in the U.S. military.
• Increasing the equity of the military service burden.
• Emergency manpower strategies.
The commission would identify quick wins, the need for policy changes and legislation, as well as prepare issues for vetting by the public at the state, regional, and White House conferences. The commission would provide the President with periodic reports on their findings and recommendations.
Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and William Jefferson Clinton each established commissions (supported by task forces) that worked on small business issues, culminating in White House conferences and the passage of key small business laws and policy changes. The commissions and task forces took important issues to state and regional conferences to engage small businesses at the grassroots level. These conferences were a resounding success.
Congress should employ a similar model to work over a two-and-a-half-year period, a commission supported by a task force and staff would make site visits, conduct legal and policy analysis, commission studies, convene focus groups, collaborate with employers and industry, and engage with communities. Once the commission identifies key issues, policy challenges, and relevant legislation, they will carry out a series of state and regional conferences with the public, employers, educators, political leaders, and others to formulate key policy and legislative initiatives that will define how the US will provide military manpower in the future. The work of the commission will lead to a White House conference to finalize the effort, as well as a briefing and report to Congress.
How the proposed approach may solve the problem:
• Engages the public in America’s approach to national defense. It is literally a public vetting of military manpower policy and legislative proposals to ensure American buy-in and consistency with American values.
• By collaborating with industry and employers on credentialing, training, experience, skills, and standards for employment, as well as career track models and vehicles for transitioning and sharing, ensures employers who provide jobs to transitioning SMs, as well as support the Guard and Reserves, participate in making military service desirable, competitive, and supported.
• Facilitates a long-term strategy for sharing employees and receiving credentialed, licensed, experienced transitioning personnel.
• Forces conversations about policies and laws that are needed in light of changes in demography, family dynamics, propensity, compensation, workforce changes, emerging generational perspectives, and workforce fluidity.
• Creates a venue for collaboration on an American strategy for addressing obesity and other health problems that affect national well-being and national security.
• Creates a national discussion about how veterans will receive ongoing care and benefits after leaving military service.
• Engages in an examination of the US military deployment model to ensure consistency with the American public’s views and commitments.
• Ensures the essential mechanisms for an emergency draft agency are reliable, swift, and equitable. It continues to tradition of identifying and training draft board members ahead of any national emergency such that the boards represent their communities, understand how to apply relevant policy, and will render fair and equitable decisions.
• Identifies essential research, focus groups, and site visits, as well as conducts vital public policy and legal analysis to make informed recommendations about the future of the US military and America’s national defense.
5. Future Direction / Long-Term Focus:
The White House conference model provides the mechanism for a comprehensive review of the existing challenges America faces in fielding a long-term, sustainable military manpower approach. It creates a nexus for the many national defense stakeholders to define a viable way ahead in a transparent environment intended to minimize fiefdoms and elevate the perspectives of the American public.
Although the Total Defense model is used in smaller countries that rely upon conscripted forces that have a low operational tempo, the notion that a strong national defense posture includes bringing the public, communities, employers, industry, leaders, and the military all to bear can help to avoid the isolation of the military from the public it serves. A total defense model can bridge the gap between the military and the public by promoting a sense of shared responsibility, creating collaborative partnerships, and encouraging active parPcipaPon in civil defense efforts. In this way, the current state of isolation of the military from the public it protects could be prevented in the future.
6. Recommendation:
Congress should authorize a White House Commission on National Defense and the All-Volunteer Force. Fifty years ago, another commission brought an end to the draft and the beginning of a volunteer military. The commission overlooked some of the difficulties that have since emerged, and many changes have occurred that they could not have foreseen. A new commission that collaborates with the public, communities, the military, government agencies, employers, industry, nonprofits, and American leaders is essential to creating a long-term, viable, and formidable national defense manpower approach.
Those who score in the 50th percentile or above on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT). AFQT scoring categories with score values: Category I (93-99), Category II (65-92), Category IIIA (50-64). Category IIIB (31-49), Category IVA (21-30), Category IVB 16-20, Category IVC (10-15), and Category V (1-9). No more than 4 percent of an accession cohort can have scores between 10 and 30. No one with a score below 10 can be inducted or enlisted.
Approximately 80 percent of those who serve have at least one relative who served, and more than a quarter of those serving are the child of a parent who served.
Appendices
Appendix A – Options
• Address the fact that 70% of young Americans are not qualified for military service and the reasons for their health, fitness, and educational shortcomings.
• Address the rising costs of staffing the military, and the paradoxical issue of poverty among military families.
• Increase military spouses’ job opportunities. Correspondingly address the financial burdens that can contribute to military family domestic violence, stress, and depression.
• Engage the public in America’s approach to national defense.
• Ensure employers who provide jobs to transitioning SMs, as well as support the Guard and Reserves, participate in making military service desirable, competitive, and supported.
• Facilitate a long-term strategy for sharing employees and receiving credentialed, licensed, experienced transitioning personnel.
• Force conversations about policies and laws that are needed in light of changes in demography, family dynamics, propensity, compensation, workforce changes, emerging generational perspectives, and workforce fluidity.
• Create a venue for collaboration on an American strategy for addressing obesity and other health problems that affect national well-being and national security. • Create a national discussion about how veterans will receive ongoing care and benefits after leaving military service.
• Engage in an examination of the US military deployment model to ensure consistency with the American public’s views and commitments.
• Ensure the essential mechanisms for an emergency draft agency are reliable, swift, and equitable. It continues the existing Selective Service System policy identifying and training draft board members ahead of any national emergency and ensuring the boards represent their communities (e.g., by reflecting community demographics and occupational makeup, as well as a blend of ages), understand how to apply relevant Selective Service policy, and rendering of fair and equitable exemption, deferment, and classification decisions.
• Identify essential research, focus groups, and site visits, as well as conducts vital public policy and legal analysis to make informed recommendations about the future of the US military and America’s national defense.
Appendix B - Charts and Diagrams
Two-Phased Model
Characteristics of States, Military Presence, and Members
Authors
This paper is presented by the American College of National Security Leaders. The ACNSL is dedicated to promoting national security by providing a source of commentary and advice to national security practitioners. Our members continue their service in support of their oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The College is organized to provide the Commander-in-Chief, the United States Government, and the people of the United States, sound, fact-based advice on national security issues. The College participates in the broader national security dialogue from a non-partisan perspective, based on civil discourse, and respecting the opinions and dissenting views of its membership.
Writing and Research Assistants:
• Jack Dutton, Hinckley Scholar, University of Utah; Summer Intern at the American College of National Security Leaders
• Leah C. Mickelsen, Hinckley Scholar, University of Utah; Summer Intern at the American College of National Security Leaders
• Deseret Crane, Hinckley Scholar, University of Utah; Summer Intern at the American College of National Security Leaders
• Dianna L. Carson, Colonel, US Army (Retired), DBH, MSS, MPA
