India and the United States, both have volunteer armed forces of about the same size. But India, with more than three times the population, has a hard time attracting sufficient new recruits. The U.S. has more recruits than it needs, while India has shortages. The reasons are partly economic, and partly due to a high number of illiterates (about 39 percent of the population) in India. In the United States, the military pay is competitive with the civilian economy. In India it is not, at least for the kind of people (literate and healthy) the military is looking for. In...