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America isn’t ready for another war — because it doesn’t have the troops
Vox via msn ^ | 01 Sep 2024 | Gil Barndollar

Posted on 09/01/2024 7:54:08 PM PDT by blueplum

Coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza is mostly dominated by talk of weapons. Reporters and analysts focus on suicide drones, on shell deficits, on targeting algorithms. But for all the attention devoted to modern weapons and munitions, both conflicts are proving that modern war still comes down to people....

... Before Covid, fewer than 3 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....

In the all-recruited force, it is military families that have inexorably become the primary providers of new recruits. Nearly 80 percent of recent Army enlistees have a veteran in their family — for almost 30 percent, it’s a parent. In the half-century since the AVF’s birth, the US military has become a family business.

This entrenchment of a “warrior caste” presents a long-term danger to democracy: a citizenry disconnected from its military can become indifferent to the missions it performs....But the immediate danger is more concrete. Should the majority of military families decide the nation is unworthy of their children’s service, as may already be happening, the AVF will become unsustainable....

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Political Humor/Cartoons; War
KEYWORDS: airforce; army; babylonthegreat; concerntroll; concerntrolling; draft; enlistments; fakenews; globohomo; marines; militaryretention; nationalsecurity; navy; neocons; recruit; reserves; volunteerforce; vox
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To: blueplum

Why would we want to fight a war when we are a fiscally and morally bankrupt former nation?


21 posted on 09/01/2024 8:27:56 PM PDT by Trumpisourlastchance
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To: blueplum

Interesting.


22 posted on 09/01/2024 8:29:35 PM PDT by Cincinnatus.45-70 (What do DemocRats enjoy more than a truckload of dead babies? Unloading them with a pitchfork!)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Calling all the veterans here mere cannon fodder is degrading to the patriots who have served and to the American nation they served.

The American military has not been used as mere cannon fodder, we have a history of valuing our soldiers lives and using them as sparingly as possible.


23 posted on 09/01/2024 8:31:29 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: Nathan _in_Arkansas

Two thumbs up.

Thank you for your service.

This VN combat vet will do everything I can, if I’m still around in 4 years, to see that my now 14-year-old grandson will not be drafted.


24 posted on 09/01/2024 8:35:35 PM PDT by laplata (They want each crisis to take the greatest toll possible.)
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To: Leaning Right

I agreed. I believed GWB and his war on terror. I feel like a fool now. We destroyed Libya for no damn reason - they had the most free and highest standard of living. I think we stole their gold but just my opinion.

Our country supports radical / moderate (if that exists) Islamic over Christian nations, sold our own people for a few extra bucks to China so they could militarily compete with us.

So I’m not sure you could convince the real men to buy their bullshit anymore. I won’t believe them ever again. 81+ million votes for the potato is BS.

I hope our country doesn’t need to try to talk people to fight another war with BS ROE. Nope - they will have to go to prisons, draft … to form an army to fight a major conflict. May God forgive us.


25 posted on 09/01/2024 8:36:05 PM PDT by wgmalabama (Censored! )
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To: delta7

Here comes the much talked about Draft.

><

They’ll have a really tough time with the draft this time.
They’ll probably want illegals to take up the slack.


26 posted on 09/01/2024 8:37:46 PM PDT by laplata (They want each crisis to take the greatest toll possible.)
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To: Nathan _in_Arkansas
I can't honestly recommend to any member of my family a military career or even serving a hitch.

Maybe if Trump is re-elected and cleans house at the top.

I mean cleans house with a sharp axe.

27 posted on 09/01/2024 8:38:54 PM PDT by jeffersondem
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To: Trumpisourlastchance

How can we have a war? We have no commander in chief? Biden’s on the beach in a coma and Harris is a half wit.


28 posted on 09/01/2024 8:40:01 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (. War is Hell)
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To: ansel12
The American military has not been used as mere cannon fodder, we have a history of valuing our soldiers lives and using them as sparingly as possible.

Vietnam? Why did we stay in Afghanistan 12 years after the assassination of Osama bin Laden?

29 posted on 09/01/2024 8:40:13 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: blueplum

What the hell would we be fighting for anyway. Freedom? Yeah, right!


30 posted on 09/01/2024 8:43:20 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: TalBlack

Why not women? Illegals? Blacks and Asians? We may need to re do the draft. In any sort of war that would be a must—but getting the new generation though Boot Camp would be a challenge.


31 posted on 09/01/2024 8:44:27 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (. War is Hell)
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To: BipolarBob

It was seven billion, not one million.


32 posted on 09/01/2024 8:46:48 PM PDT by 4Runner
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To: MinorityRepublican

You may not have liked the mission but our troops were not treated as cannon fodder like the Russians and Chinese do, two examples of nations who are indifferent to their losses and place little to no value on their soldiers lives.


33 posted on 09/01/2024 8:47:01 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: blueplum

The fag’s and lezbos won’t fight and American patriots won’t enlist!


34 posted on 09/01/2024 8:47:02 PM PDT by Harpotoo (Being a socialist is a lot easier than having to WORK like the rest of US:-))
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To: Telepathic Intruder

And enough money for what, 11 CVN - at least the ships


35 posted on 09/01/2024 8:48:10 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: blueplum

It’s an interesting but wrong-headed article.

Between the Army and Marine active, organized reserve and (Army) guard, we have on the order of 150 maneuver (infantry, armor) battalions and 50 artillery battalions. There is no conceivable fight with non-nuclear powers for which this is an insufficient force, and there is no reason to believe that we would ever have a conventional ground forces fight with another nuclear power.

We have the manning necessary to operate on the order of 3,500 combat aircraft across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines - ditto being more than enough.


36 posted on 09/01/2024 8:51:02 PM PDT by only1percent
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To: ansel12

As I look at Iraq and Afghanistan, and wince in pain every morning when I first put my feet in the ground, I have no doubt I was nothing but cannon fodder to the elites.


37 posted on 09/01/2024 8:54:00 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Sometimes There Is No Lesser Of Two Evils)
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To: blueplum

There’s a real simple solution. With the draft, they’ve got all the normal sons and grandsons of our’s they’ll need for all their globalist misadventures.

A simple majority vote by that gang of warmongers in the Capitol brings it back.


38 posted on 09/01/2024 8:57:45 PM PDT by hardspunned (Look for the“Putin Stooge” libel, news from Ukraine you’ve gradually grown to trust over 30 months )
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To: ansel12; MinorityRepublican

Calling our troops “cannon fodder” is perhaps an inappropriate choice of words. But I can understand why it was used, given the historical nature of the phrase.

Better to call the overseas deployment of our soldiers “reckless”. We throw our people into regions with no clear goal, and with no exit strategy.

A perfect example of this is the deployment of our troops in Syria. The Syrian government does not want us there. Yet there we are, a target for any nut with a mobile rocket launcher. When will we leave? Who knows?


39 posted on 09/01/2024 8:58:10 PM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: MeanWestTexan

If you choose to think that way it is more a personality trait, just be happy you weren’t really fighting for a nation that treats its soldiers with actual indifference to their deaths and suffering and the quantity of it.


40 posted on 09/01/2024 9:06:22 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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