The Daily Caller reports that the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) has received documents regarding the Air Force’s new officer applicant standards — but only after filing a lawsuit to pry them loose. These documents make for interesting reading, particularly in conjunction with the recent report from the Commission on the National Defense Strategy highlighted by Jim Geraghty yesterday.
The commission’s report noted that all the services — except the Marines and Space Force — are struggling to meet their recruitment targets. Worse, even when the armed forces met their targets, the current “force-sizing construct is inadequate for today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges.”
Based on the documents obtained by CASA, the Air Force’s response to its recruitment shortfall appears to be “We need fewer white males in Air Force ROTC.” As the Daily Caller notes:
One of the slides in question, labeled “AFROTC White,” depicts a graph that shows the percentage of white male ROTC officer applicants declining from approximately 60% in fiscal year 2019 to a projected 50% in fiscal year 2023. The graph further details how the Air Force’s goal is to reduce that percentage down to approximately 43% in fiscal year 2029, denoted by a star with the label “achieve(d) goal.” [Emphasis added.]
If the commission’s correct, the Air Force may not have until 2029 to meet its goals. It needs to meet its recruitment goals now. Yet instead of trying to recruit the most qualified people regardless of race or sex, it’s fiddling with the racial composition of its recruits as if it’s putting together a Benetton ad.
It’s also worth noting that the commission ascribes the military’s recruiting struggles, in part, to “negative experiences of recently separated and serving military personnel — such as . . . racial, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination and harassment.” This may be true but probably not in the way the commission means. Recent data indicate that the branches’ recruiting shortfalls are almost entirely attributable to a decline in white male recruits, with no corresponding increase in the number of minority recruits. The Daily Signal reported in February:
Data for the Air Force shows that Asian recruits increased from 1,100 — or 3.7% of a total of 29,831 recruits — in 2019 to 1,471 — or 6.1% of a total of 23,967 recruits — in 2023. While the number of black Air Force recruits was nearly identical during this period — 5,144 in 2018 and 5,155 in 2023 — they comprised a larger percentage of the incoming force in 2023, at 21.51%, than they had in 2018, at 17.2%, as the Air Force’s incoming classes shrunk.
White Air Force recruits, by contrast, dipped from 21,593 in 2018, or 72.4% of the total, to 15,068, or 62.9% of the total, in 2023, the data shows.
Likewise, data released in June of this year indicated that the Army has suffered a 35 percent drop in male recruitment since 2013, with no corresponding increase in female recruitment.
There doubtless are many cultural and social reasons that contribute to the recruitment crisis. But it beggars belief that the military’s focus is on reducing the number of recruits from the demographic that traditionally has formed the base of the military — white males. Perhaps more than most endeavors, military service tends to be a family tradition. Just as a simple matter of history, white males are more likely than other demographics to have fathers and grandfathers who have served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf and to be proud of their family tradition of service.
But, instead of recruiting the low-hanging fruit, the services actively discourage white males by making it clear that the focus is on recruiting and promoting everyone but them.