Too much pushing specific political greivences. There are three main problems with military recruitment.
1> Due to declining birth rates there are fewer potential enlistees to recruit.
2> While not a line pushed by the US military “Join and become a man” has been an age old recruiting trope. A lot of young men look at much of what get published and goes “That’s a man?”
3> The short fall is mostly in straight white men, and DEI, CRT etc. is part and parcel of telling this contingent, you are not welcome here. Many of them go somewhere they are more welcome.
“”””Due to declining birth rates there are fewer potential enlistees to recruit.””””
We have never had this many available for so few military slots, compare this more than 340 million population and tiny military to what was a half century of tiny to small population and a vastly larger military.