Image source: topwar.ru
The Pentagon is considering the option of reducing the Armed Forces and this is not due to lack of funding, the United States is once again faced with the unwillingness of young people to serve in the American army. This is reported by The Washington Examiner.
In the United States, there is no conscription, the army has been recruited on a voluntary basis since 1973 and during all this time it has only faced recruitment problems three times. According to the publication, difficulties with recruiting young people into the US Army and Marine Corps arose in 1999, 2005 and 2018. According to analysts, this was due to economic difficulties and, oddly enough, to the losses of the armed forces in various conflicts. That is, the Pentagon in certain years could not bring the quantitative indicators of the US Armed Forces to certain values due to the reluctance of American citizens to die in military conflicts in which the US army is involved.
This year, according to forecasts of both the Pentagon itself and military experts and analysts, a similar situation may develop. Moreover, it is predicted that 2022 will be the most difficult year for the entire existence of the contract recruitment of the American army. Already, the Pentagon has been forced to reduce the country's armed forces by 12 thousand people, because it was not possible to find the necessary number of people willing to serve. There is a shortage of recruits both in the US Army itself (Ground Forces) and in the Marine Corps. The Air Force has hardly been staffed, and only the US Navy seems to be more or less coping with the personnel shortage.
This situation is associated with the decline in the prestige of the American army as a whole in recent years. The events in Afghanistan added fuel to the fire, where, after 20 years of being there, the American army suffered a crushing fiasco, fleeing and abandoning all military equipment for many billions of dollars. According to analysts, many residents of the United States no longer believe in the American army, in its ability to somehow protect the country. In addition, a layer of veterans, war heroes, who could tell about the heroism of the American army by their own example, disappeared in the United States.
All this together has led to problems with the recruitment of the US Armed Forces, and recent events in Europe, where Washington is trying to stop Russia with the help of Ukraine, can hit the prestige of the American army even more painfully, experts say.