Military Readiness Slips

Why Are Recruitment Levels Falling?

The news is in and military recruitment in the USA is down (https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/10/13/armys-misplaced-priorities-recruitment-shortfall-more-problematic-than-climate-change/)  People do not think of military defense much. Ask anyone, would you give a gun to a ten-year-old kid for their birthday?  Many would be aghast at merely the thought of the idea. However, the sooner a child learns to fire a gun, the better they will be able to use it and be set for a career as a soldier or police officer.

Guns are about self-defense, self-reliance, and self-determination. But since self-reliance and self-determination have fallen out of interest because of the assumptions of peace, the interest in gun ownership has been limited or seen as archaic by a large portion of the population. With war, people study the Just War theory such as mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas. They argue about pacifism, self-determination, defense, and self-reliance. During the Cold War, people would wonder about nuclear bombs and about the Civil War, and was any of it just? But in peace, people have lost interest.

Most often the verbiage used is the "US Civil War" but, in actuality, it was the Northern States invading the Southern States. The Southern States fought a defensive war against invasion in the same way Ukraine defends itself from Russia today. This is why the USA often runs into difficulties in opposing foreign countries invading their neighbors. Immediately, objectionists push morality by saying the war was over slavery to sugar-coat the invasion.  However, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee all seceded because of the military invasion of the South. In addition, President Lincoln made the topic quite clear in his First Inaugural address (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp). He admitted he could do nothing about slavery and at the same time, stated there need be no war if duties are paid.

So when Robert E. Lee, the man who single-handedly ended the war, is demonized and monuments of him torn down, what do you think the consequences are? The ideas of peace and self-determination are thrown out the window and people become disillusioned. People of the former Confederate states have a heritage of war and their populations have enlisted in the US military at higher rates compared to many other states. With the attack on Confederate monuments, they have become disillusioned with the military and therefore enlistment has dropped (https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/costs/social/Troop%20Numbers%20By%20State_Costs%20of%20War_FINAL.pdf and https://stacker.com/stories/1993/states-highest-rates-military-enlistment and https://www.revolver.news/2022/09/biden-war-on-confederate-southern-war-memorials-backfires/ and https://civilwarchat.wordpress.com/2022/09/26/does-confederaphobia-cause-a-military-recruiting-deficit/ )