Is Our Military Too Big for Our Population?

When we talk about large the US military is, it's usually in terms of how much money we spend on it or how much hardware we have or how many times over we could destroy the planet with our nukes (the answer is 5 to 50).

Depending on when or who you ask, the United States spends as much on its armed forces as the next 7 to 10 countries. People as diverse as Rand Paul and Barack Obama have made this statement, and it's true. Our military budget is massive:



But two reports in The Hill on the same day about our nation's military readiness raise a serious question: do we have enough qualified people to staff the military, or has it grown larger than our population can support?

The first report is about John McCain's anger (what else is new?):

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is again threatening to hold up Pentagon nominees, this time over a news report about the Army granting mental health waivers to recruits.

At issue is a USA Today report that said the Army has lifted a ban on issuing waivers for recruits with a history of self-harm, bipolar disorder, depression or drug and alcohol abuse.

McCain is legitimately concerned that the Army is lowering standards for soldiers because it can't meet its recruiting goals. This is especially concerning in light of the recent mass murder in a Texas church: the shooter was booted out of the Air Force for domestic abuse and mental illness. The stress of military life is the last thing a person with preexisting mental health issues should be exposed to.

The second report was about the Air Force's pilot shortage:

Top Air Force leaders and lawmakers are warning that a pilot shortage of 2,000 could cripple the service, leaving it unready to handle its responsibilities.

“With 2,000 pilots short, it’ll break the force. It’ll break it,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said on Thursday during the annual State of the Air Force news conference.

The Air Force needs 20,000 pilots minimum to fly its wide range of aircraft, including fighter jets, helicopters, transport planes, support attack planes and cargo aircraft. At the start of the year, it said it had 18,500 pilots, well short of its minimum.

A big part of the problem is that we have been fighting wars nonstop for 16 years. Some military personnel have been deployed to war zones four, five, six and more times. This is the longest war we've ever fought, and it's taking a huge toll on the mental health, families and marriages of enlisted personnel.

At the same time, Donald Trump is quietly pushing through yet another troop surge in Afghanistan. Our troops are being kidnapped and executed in secret missions in Africa. And Trump is threatening North Korea with war.

At the same time, Trump is ending the DACA program, threatening to kick the Dreamers out of the country. There are almost a thousand service members in the US military who were brought to the United States illegally as children, and now their futures are in doubt.

People throw around a lot of solutions: reinstate the draft, institute higher pay, use more robots and drones, etc. But the real question is, why do we need such a gigantic military in Trump's age of America First, where we sacrifice our European and Asian allies to the Russians and the Chinese? We're the not the world's policeman anymore: why spend one out of every five federal budget dollars on the military?

If there was a path to "winning" militarily in Afghanistan we would have discovered it by now. In fact, we know exactly how to crush the Taliban in Afghanistan: destroy their bases in Pakistan. But that would unleash all kinds of hell, inciting more terrorists angry at American interference in the Muslim world.

We keep telling ourselves we have to intervene militarily across the world to protect ourselves from the people who hate us. But most of those people hate us because we keep intervening militarily across the world.