US Military Recruitment Crisis I

United States of America (USA) is a country primarily located in North America consisting fifty states, having world’s third largest land and area. It has a population of three hundred thirty-three million third most populous of the world after India and China. The president of America is the commander in Chief of the United States Army and has the authority to appoint its leaders, the secretary of defence and Joint Chiefs of Staff. The department of defence which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington D.C, administer five of the six branches, which are made up of Army, Navy, Marine, Corps, Air Force and Space Force. The Coast is administered by the Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of Navy in wartime. USA spent US$ 877 billion on its military in 2022, which is by far the largest amount of any country, making 39% of the world’s total military spending. After USA the next largest military spender is China, which spends US$ 292 billion, Russia with third largest having spent US$ 86. 4 billion India fourth and Saudi Arabia fifth one.
It is interesting to note that the top five countries alone account for almost 60% of global military spending and that the United States spend more on its military than 11 countries combine.
World Top 10 Military Spending Countries

Rank Country Military Spending US$ billion % of GDP
1 United States of America 877 3.5
2 China 292 1.6
3 Russia 86 4.1
4 India 81 2.4
5 Saudi Arabia 75 7.4
6 UK 68 2.2
7 Germany 56 1.4
8 France 54 1.9
9 South Korea 46 2.7
10 Japan 46 1.1

United States of America for a longer period was a global policeman which ruined, crushed justice, human rights under its feet now facing a worst crisis to recruit its youth for joining its army.
Shortage in US Armed Forces

Department No of Recruit short
Army 15,000
Navy 10,000
Air Force 3,000
Total 28,000


US continuous military interventions, its world’s historic and Himalayan atrocities in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan is now an open secret and people especially young Americans don’t want to join US Armed forces as career. Because of US policies and killings of hundreds of thousands of people in the world specially in Iraq and Afghanistan US young people have lack of confidence in US military forces and are in depression. GUN CULTURE is common killing spree in schools, colleges and public places is became daily routine. Many US youth are addicted to narcotics, prohibited medicines and others like these one. Because of these and other reasons over 70% American youth between 17 and 24 are ineligible for services. According to some analysts only 13% say they might think to join US forces, while only two percent of these have eligibility to join forces. Mental health, and criminal background are some of the reasons. The fiscal year for the US Army ends in September and the army has only reached 50% of its recruiting goal. The Army had signing up 60,000 people this year but according to the secretary of the army they could sign up close to 15,000 shorts of those goal. The Army is offering lucrative incentives of about US$ 40,000 for special forces candidates, the Navy is offering up to over US $ 100,000 for eligible veteran to sign up. Influencers are not advising them to go into the military and mom, dads, uncles, coaches, pesters are telling them that joining US military is not a good career. Admiral (retired) Michael Mullen former chairman joint chiefs of staff admitted that the US military had lost its charm for young Americans.
Pentagon conducted a survey and found that only 9% of youth are wiling to join US Armed forces which means 91% of American youths are not interested in joining US armed forces which is a great setback for American policy makers. It is a huge lack of patriotism. In 2018 US military started a huge marketing campaign with a huge cost of US$ 4 billion to attract American Youth for US Armed forces but even this campaign failed to produce the desired results. It is estimated that alone in Iraq between 700,000 people were killed and more than 95% were civilians. And if estimated total deaths by US and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen the figure touches around 12 million. Millions more people have been left destitute, jobless and home less due to these wars. According to the UN, more than 110 million people were forcibly displaced as of may 2023, Of these 35.3 million had been displaced across national borders. In 2018, American veterans in the United States were 55 percent more likely to kill themselves than people in the border population. Thirty eight percent of veterans have diagnosed mental health disorder.
Over the last twenty years, the US military has been exposed as the deadly instrument of American imperialism by the destruction of whole societies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the death of millions of people, the squandering of trillions of dollars of resources, the total disregard for human life, including its own soldiers. Because of these reasons American Youth are not willing to join US Armed forces.