Since the end of the draft, the American republic has quietly, steadily acquired a military caste:
A declining societal ethos of service, coupled to the tendency of mission-focused military recruiters to “fish where the fish are” by focusing on high-yield geographic areas, has made multigenerational military families the norm. In 2019, nearly 80 percent of Army recruits reported having a family member who had served. For almost 30 percent, that person was a parent.
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A 2021 survey by the Military Family Advisory Network found that just 62.9 percent of military and veteran families would recommend military life, down from 74.5 percent two years before.
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The other structural challenge facing the AVF is that it is still based on the career and family norms of the 1950s. In an era of increased career mobility and dual-income households, the military is still designed for a world of single-income families with the civilian spouse playing the role of supportive camp follower.
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With more women than men completing college and pursuing professional careers, the pool of families willing to take on the burden of military service under this model is steadily dwindling.
The military career model also assumes that senior leaders will be with the same organization for 30 years or more, making the institution an extreme outlier among large employers. This limits the talent pool to those who find such a commitment palatable. In a world where drones and artificial intelligence will likely dominate future conflicts, the isolated and heavily bureaucratic professional-development models of the military will struggle to keep up with the pace of innovation. Congress has authorized lateral entry measures—enlisting those with needed skills at far higher initial rank and pay—to break open this closed labor market, but cultural resistance from the services has prevented these policies from making much impact.
Yes, and all we did is show up. No plan. The same demographic provides police at all levels, and the sharp end of the IC. I have been saying for years: these are the same families, same people.
Looking at our elites, there are worse things.
The caste is white, working-class, Southern boys. There is a growing disaffection between them and the new woke military. If that disaffection grows, as seems likely, the US will have to reintroduce the draft to maintain force levels. Muy fun.
“The U.S. military may not survive the one-two punch of world-historically unprecedented, intentionally engineered social breakdown and purely self-inflicted Ronahoax-associated massive loss of legitimacy.”
Yeah…
“The American republic has quietly, steadily acquired a military caste…”
Or re-acquired.
You have to be careful in choosing a baseline.
Before the draft it was quite common to have members serve in a branch of the services for generations.
In my family’s case it was the Coast Guard, going back into the 1800’s.