Meaghan Mobbs joins the podcast to discuss this month’s policy focus: The Military Recruitment Crisis. The U.S. military is facing its greatest recruiting challenge in almost half a century with the Army, Navy, and Air Force falling short of their recruiting goals by the thousands. We’ll look at the reasons why, which include a broader societal disconnect that encompasses a lack of patriotism, love of country, and a sense of shared values.
Meaghan Mobbs, Ph.D., is an experienced nongovernmental, policy and political leader and serves as Vice President for Client Strategies at LINK, where she provides strategic advice on public affairs matters. Meaghan is known for her research into understanding the unique psychosocial stressors of service during a time of war and has frequently published on this topic. Meaghan is a former paratrooper and combat veteran who serves on the board of multiple organizations dedicated to assisting service members in the transition to civilian life. Finally, she served as a Presidential appointee to the United States Military Academy – West Point Board of Visitors and is a current Gubernatorial appointee to the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks the podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode, we look at this month’s policy focus entitled “The Military Recruitment Crisis.” The US military is facing its greatest recruiting challenge in almost half a century with the Army, Navy, and Air Force falling short of their recruiting goals by thousands. So we’re going to look at the reasons why, which include a broader societal disconnect that encompasses things like a lack of patriotism, love of country, and sense of shared values.
And the author of this report, this policy focus, is with us today. Meaghan Mobbs is with us. She is an experienced non-governmental policy and political leader and serves as vice president for client strategies at LINK. She is known for her research into understanding the unique psychosocial stressors of service during a time of war and is frequently published on this topic. She’s a former paratrooper and combat veteran who serves on the board of multiple organizations dedicated to assisting service members in the transition to civilian life. Meaghan, it is an honor to have you on She Thinks today.
Meaghan Mobbs:
Thanks, Beverly, for having me. I really appreciate it.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so, first of all, thank you for your service. We appreciate that. I think you’re the perfect person to talk about this. And so, I want to get into really where you started in the policy focus, which is discussing what the data really show, what are the current recruitment rates and how do they compare with previous decades?
Meaghan Mobbs:
Yeah, absolutely. And so, Beverly, you addressed this in your introduction, which I really appreciate. Actually, this is the biggest crisis we’ve seen in 50 years, and it’s certainly the largest crisis we’ve seen since the advent of the all-volunteer force, meaning once the draft dissolved and we no longer had that, and we entirely focused on recruitment for an all-volunteer force, this is the largest deficit we’ve ever seen and it is quite substantial. I feel like sometimes we look at these numbers and we say, “Well, they’re going to fall short by 7%.” And we can say to ourselves, “Well, is 7% all that much?”
When we’re talking about the Army in particular, which is really where that 7% deficit is, that’s quite substantial, especially given the fact that Army as a branch is oftentimes an enabler force for other branches of the military. So Air Force, Marines, Navy, for example, they act as an augmentee force, especially when doing combined arms operations. So the reality is these deficits are quite large and quite significant, which is going to pose a huge problem moving forward.
Beverly Hallberg:
And of course, the way warfare takes place has evolved. It now includes the tech side of things such as cyber, artificial intelligence, et cetera. Is the military recruitment issue may be part of a natural extension of how warfare has changed? Do we really need the same amount of troops since so much is through technology?
Meaghan Mobbs:
So absolutely. I think inherently we have this idea that technology removes a human element from warfare, but the reality is it couldn’t be further from the truth. Even our unmanned systems require manned operators in order for them to function and for them to do the work that they need to do. So qualified participants, qualified folks running these weapons systems are going to be critical regardless of whether or not the technology evolves, maybe we will eventually reach a level in which humans are not part of warfare, but I think we are extraordinarily far off from that goal. And the reality is, with our near peer competitors with Russia and with China, they have substantial land forces. And so, we are going to need people, actual Americans joining our armed forces.
Beverly Hallberg:
Now, it’s always been a positive thing and something that’s been encouraged for those who decide to get into the military to have a degree, they want educated people. Is there a big push to find people who understand the tech side of things and is that a hard role to fill since like you were saying, we have moved into cyber warfare, AI, et cetera?
Meaghan Mobbs:
So absolutely. I think that it’s actually two questions in there. And the reality is that we have a lot of service members who don’t have degrees, and in fact, serving allows them to get education along the way. And so, that’s actually a benefit of the military or of military service is getting an education after or during your period of service. And it is quite an effective recruiting technique to utilize that.
So we don’t necessarily need someone who has a college degree, for example. Now, we do have specialty or the military has specialty recruiting pipelines for those that have hyper-focused skillsets. So to your point, cyber, AI, those really technological focuses, especially in the Air Force and the Navy, they do a good job of recruiting into those particular subsets. But it’s really the broader focus of the military where we’re really falling short, not necessarily in some of those subspecialties.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I want to let our listeners know that they can find this policy focus on iwf.org. So if you want more details, do go there. We’ll mention at the end of this conversation as well. But before we get into some of the reasons why, because we are going to delve into that, I thought we should look at where our military readiness currently is, especially maybe even looking in comparison to China and Russia. Where are their recruitment rates and how concerned should we be in the years to come if our recruitment rates stay where they are or even get worse?
Meaghan Mobbs:
So, I think that it’s a hard comparison to make just by virtue of the fact that we are an all volunteer force that China and Russia can force conscription in ways that we can’t here in the United States. So that makes it, excuse me, I’m fighting a cold, a little bit of a challenge to really make it an apples to apples comparison. And as we’re seeing in Ukraine with the Russian army right now, they’re not quite as formidable as we had probably anticipated or thought for a long period of time. But what makes them dangerous, I would say, is the fact that they can mass conscript in a moment’s notice, which we’re seeing them do in Ukraine anyway. So they have zero problem throwing life and bodies at warfare, at a problem and don’t have the same kind of compunctions that we do in the West about the preservation of life.
And in China, that’s a very different kind of problem set because they actually in some ways mandate some indoctrination, some military training starting very early, like in secondary school or high school in which everyone has to learn drill, learn ceremony. And so, there’s this buy-in into the military apparatus very early on that we don’t have here in the United States. So I would say, inherently the problem is not just that the way they, I mean China and Russia recruit, it’s that here at home we’re having an substantial problem and we certainly don’t, and we shouldn’t want the kind of tool sets they have in place to recruit in places like China and Russia.
Beverly Hallberg:
Do you think that the United States may get to a place where they do move from an all volunteer force to actually mandating, having to draft something in that vein that they have to implement?
Meaghan Mobbs:
I think it would take an absolute existential crisis for that to happen. So something pretty substantial and catastrophic for it to occur for us to move back. I think once we had the dissolution of the draft and the movement into selective service, I think that that putting would be putting the horse back in the barn in some ways by going to a draft or something like that.
I think that what we may more likely see is the substantial overhaul and push to include folks in the armed forces that maybe we wouldn’t have previously by doing waivers or doing age waivers, education waivers, things like that. We actually have done previously as we needed forces during Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think that’s probably more likely, but I would say never count anything out if there is something truly catastrophic that threatens America and the future of our country.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, let’s get into the reasons why we see this drop in recruitment. First of all, let’s just start with the economics. Is there anything economically, for example, maybe we don’t pay our troops enough, pay our military service members enough. What are the economics of it?
Meaghan Mobbs:
So I would say certainly that’s an issue. That’s the big place that folks go when they begin to talk about the recruitment crisis is that one, the job market in America and some places extraordinarily well. So competing against the economy of jobs outside of the military, it can be challenging. And so, I think there is always going to be an argument that we should do a better job of paying service members what they deserve and what they should have compared to their potential civilian position.
This is particularly true when you see a lot of service members talking about food insecurity, and that’s a pretty substantial problem for the lower enlisted. So those that are young, really beginning their careers that may have families that maybe previously wouldn’t have families, which is really where pay scales were developed was when we weren’t taking into consideration, folks may be married or have children early on in their career. And that’s really where you see that discrepancy, that difference, and where there may be problems economically.
Beverly Hallberg:
And something that you brought up in the policy focus, which I thought first of all is sad, but a very interesting and important thing to focus on. You’re talking about our young people in society today and we see due to COVID and other factors, more mental health issues, suicidal thoughts, also obesity issues. When you look at young people coming up, how important are those issues going to play a role in whether or not these would be recruits that we could even accept into the military?
Meaghan Mobbs:
So absolutely. I mean, that’s kind of one of the hugest problems is the fact that our pool of young recruits is only about 23%. And 23% that would qualify to serve in our armed forces. That is an extraordinarily low number, and it’s for all the reasons that you just mentioned, Beverly.
So COVID exacerbated some already emerging and rising mental health challenges. So certainly COVID exacerbated it. I certainly think that social media has a role to play in all of that, which is perhaps another policy conversation and focus, but that’s a portion of it. School closures certainly contributed to education’s robustness and the capability of passing the ASVAB, which is the test that you have to take to even be assessed into the military. So those two things certainly.
And then, COVID also exacerbated an already rising youth obesity crisis. So it rose from 19% to 22% during the pandemic, and it’s only continuing to get worse. So those three factors. And then, on top of that, a portion of generation Z is just not even considering the military as an option. They’re not interested or it’s not something that’s even on their radar.
Beverly Hallberg:
And is that have to do with a lack of patriotism? And just taking us back to 9/11, so many people signed up because they wanted to serve the country after the tragedy of 9/11. Where is patriotism today among young people? And I assume part of what factors into this is if the United States is viewed or some teach that the United States is systemically racist, why would you want to put your life on the line for a country that’s like that? So where are we on patriotism?
Meaghan Mobbs:
So not great. And that is the thrust of this argument, which is that patriotism and the core values that unite us as Americans, there was a great study that was published in The Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago that looked at values that unite Americans, and one of them was patriotism. And when they first measured this, I think it was back in 1998 or so, really patriotism as a core American value is at 70%, which is very high. It currently today is 38%. So way less than a majority of Americans believe patriotism is important.
And if you lose patriotism or the belief that your country is worth fighting for, worth serving and sacrificing for, well, then actually that the crux of your problem isn’t even necessarily related to things like education or obesity or mental health, or the economy, though those certainly are factors. It’s about the reality that people aren’t willing to serve and sacrifice for their country. And that is a huge issue that’s not even necessarily being talked about.
Beverly Hallberg:
And one of the things that also factors into what you were just mentioning is that the Department of Defense has pushed diversity, equity, and inclusion training, so the DEI efforts, and it seems that they’re prioritizing equity and inclusion over merit and the ability to do your job well as a military service member. How much of DEI inclusion has really hampered the ability of our military force to do its duty well?
Meaghan Mobbs:
So the sole purpose of the military is to build effective teams, right? Yeah. There’s certainly loan operators that exist within the military apparatus. And certainly, there are jobs that require operating individually or uniquely, but ultimately, the military is about building teams. It’s about building teams so those teams can fight effectively and win our nation’s wars. That is the sole purpose of our military. Everything else is tangential.
And so, anytime I think that you’re focusing on things that divide us rather than unite us, you’re going to have a very difficult time building teams, building camaraderie, and uniting around a common purpose. So a lot of the DEI curriculum that we see, especially the type that’s being used in the military, is really around that divisive idea that, “Well, we’re judged by our immutable characteristics, so our skin color or our gender, rather than what makes us unique as individuals.” Yes, but what do those characteristics allow us to bring to a team to further the efforts of that team?
And so, I think the other piece of all this that we often forget when speaking about diversity, one of the most effective types of diversity isn’t actually anything related to your immutable characteristics, is about cognitive diversity. So how we approach problems, how we solve problems, how we conceptualize problems, and that level of cognitive diversity is extraordinarily important and certainly not something that we’re talking about. Oh, I’m sorry, Beverly, go ahead.
Beverly Hallberg:
I was just going to say-
Meaghan Mobbs:
I get very excited talking about this.
Beverly Hallberg:
Now that we have the lay of the land of how dire some of this is. This isn’t encouraging to this point. I want to know what the solutions are. So what can we do to try to improve our recruitment levels?
Meaghan Mobbs:
The first thing I would always say, and actually, my father says this as well, is something we say in our family is never bet against America, never bet against Americans. That when push comes to shove, we are always going to show up well and we will fight and we will win.
So I think that I’m always encouraged by that. But the really concrete things that we can begin doing is looking at things like civic education. So necessarily during the ’80s, during the Cold War, as we were looking at the Soviet Union and what they were doing with science and with technology, we realized we were really lagging behind in that area around science, technology, engineering, math. And so, we invest substantial amount of resources in order to bring us up to the level of the Soviet Union. So we are really trying to keep pace with them.
And as a result though over time where we close that gap with the Soviet Union and all those dollars are being invested in STEM, we let civic education take a backseat. And when I say civic education, I really mean education around our nation, different branches of government, our constitution, why it matters, what’s unique and exceptional about America. So I’m not talking necessarily even about a rah, rah America’s great course. I mean, just the fundamentals about our nation and how it was established and why that’s so incredibly important in the canon of world history.
And because that civic education doesn’t exist anymore in many places, I think there’s only seven states that mandate or require a civic education course, we can do that. We can bring civics back again and really make it extraordinarily important as part of the overall education process for our youth.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah, I think that that’s a great place to start and important. I do encourage all of our listeners to take a look at this policy focus. It’s on iwf.org. It is called “The Recruitment Crisis.” The author you just heard from is with us today. And of course, she put a lot of great information in there. Meaghan Mobbs, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your work on this.
Meaghan Mobbs:
Thanks, Beverly. It’s great to be here.
Beverly Hallberg:
And thank you all for joining us. Before you go, IWF does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you. An investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and wellbeing for all Americans. So please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org/donate. That’s iwf.org/donate.
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