> Should a true national security emergency arise, America lacks the ability to mobilize as Israel and Russia have done. The Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) — comprising former active duty or selected reserve personnel who could be reactivated by the Secretary of Defense during wartime or a national emergency — is designed to act as a bridge from the AVF to a revived draft. Almost forgotten even by servicemembers, the IRR earned brief notoriety when some servicemembers were “stop-lossed” during the Iraq War — pulled from the IRR and returned to active duty involuntarily, usually to deploy again.
> Today, there are just over 264,000 servicemembers in the entire IRR. The Army’s IRR pool has shrunk from 700,000 in 1973 to 76,000 in 2023. Forget building new units in wartime: the IRR is now incapable of even providing sufficient casualty replacements for losses from the first battles of a high-intensity war.
> And even if more Americans could be encouraged to sign up, they may not be able to serve. Before Covid, fewer than three in 10 Americans in the prime recruiting demographic — ages 17 to 24 — were eligible to serve in uniform. Those numbers have shrunk further since the pandemic began. Only 23 percent of young Americans are qualified to enlist without a waiver, based on the most recent data. Endemic youth obesity, record levels of physical unfitness, mental health issues exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, and drug use have rendered the vast majority of young Americans ineligible for military service. Scores on the ASVAB — the military’s standardized exam for recruits, which tests aptitude for service — plummeted during the pandemic.
Turns out, if you don't build a system for your human pipeline to thrive, it comes back to bite. You can only neglect it for so long until the system goes from hobbling along to system failure.
The US has huge active duty, Guard, and Reserve groups in all branches that can and do deploy regularly. The AF in particular regularly performs logistics exercises just to practice and demonstrate the ability to deploy and fight quickly.
Typically logistics matters far more for a war of attrition and the US is still one of the best at that. Moreover what are we even talking about—an offensive war against the US? Our geographical position makes that unrealistic.
> logistics matters far more for a war of attrition and the US is still one of the best at that
Logistics matter far more in any war. In a war of attrition, however, production (not stocks) determine the outcome. (Soldiers are produced out of the civilian population.)
The reason OP's argument isn't urgent is there is no proximate war of attritition in which the stock America is running down are its soldiers. As a rich democracy, we're somewhat uniquely sensitive to troop losses. It's why we invest so heavily in technology to compensate.
> an offensive war against the US? Our geographical position makes that unrealistic
Those buffers of course. After which we don't have buffers. I'm not predicting imminent invasion of the homeland.
Like, if we lose our security positions in Europe and the West Pacific we're back where we were in the inter-War period.
Being ready for war prevents war : Being unready for war invites it.
It's really simple: If you are leading an expansionist state, who are you going to attack first? The neighboring village/fiefdom/nation that trains like Sparta and is clearly ready to kick your military's asses back to your farthest border, or the other one whose population is mostly too fat to run down the street and spends their time chasing the latest TV show and fashion trend?
Another thought further down the line is to get some self-driving equipment installed, and use the cars before sending actual people. I feel like a relatively cheap kit could turn one into a ram and/or remote surveillance point.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368528/us-military-army-n...
> Should a true national security emergency arise, America lacks the ability to mobilize as Israel and Russia have done. The Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) — comprising former active duty or selected reserve personnel who could be reactivated by the Secretary of Defense during wartime or a national emergency — is designed to act as a bridge from the AVF to a revived draft. Almost forgotten even by servicemembers, the IRR earned brief notoriety when some servicemembers were “stop-lossed” during the Iraq War — pulled from the IRR and returned to active duty involuntarily, usually to deploy again.
> Today, there are just over 264,000 servicemembers in the entire IRR. The Army’s IRR pool has shrunk from 700,000 in 1973 to 76,000 in 2023. Forget building new units in wartime: the IRR is now incapable of even providing sufficient casualty replacements for losses from the first battles of a high-intensity war.
> And even if more Americans could be encouraged to sign up, they may not be able to serve. Before Covid, fewer than three in 10 Americans in the prime recruiting demographic — ages 17 to 24 — were eligible to serve in uniform. Those numbers have shrunk further since the pandemic began. Only 23 percent of young Americans are qualified to enlist without a waiver, based on the most recent data. Endemic youth obesity, record levels of physical unfitness, mental health issues exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, and drug use have rendered the vast majority of young Americans ineligible for military service. Scores on the ASVAB — the military’s standardized exam for recruits, which tests aptitude for service — plummeted during the pandemic.
Turns out, if you don't build a system for your human pipeline to thrive, it comes back to bite. You can only neglect it for so long until the system goes from hobbling along to system failure.