Studies show that over the last 20 years the number of Americans willing or interested in or not entirely opposed to the idea of serving in the military has fallen sharply - also shown is that of that dwindling pool of candidates the number who are in fact eligible or capable of serving has also fallen sharply - listed causes for disqualification: poor education, outright stupidity, drug use, criminal records - and most damning of all, obesity - the obesity rate among the most desirable age demographic for military service has risen from 12% twenty years ago to 23% today - from report I read a recruitment officer is quoted as being shocked by the number of candidates coming in to enlist who can't even manage one push-up.
Distressing information - I wonder how long before America needs to institute a peace time draft in order to ensure the most powerful military in the world stays the most powerful military in the world? If the culture keeps spitting out a combination of effete, America-hating Europhile liberals, sloven fatties and drugged up high school dropouts can a crisis really be that far removed?
Sidebar - someone must have looked into why people enlist - unemployment, lack of opportunities in hometowns, to pay for education no doubt remain near top of the list - but someone must have looked into contributing cultural incentives - God, love of country, a yearning for adventure that is unique - and likewise culturally induced disincentives - laziness and physical degradation, sure, but also contempt for authority, a growing discomfort with the ideas of force and power and military necessity, a disregard for values commonly associated with patriotism, a splintering of social cohesion and the sense of a unifying national identity - things of this nature. Someone must have done a study like this - I'd be curious what such a study indicated - and be curious to know how political ideology or bias factored in.
Of course it's now taken as a received truth to equate the democrats with a weakening of the military imperative - and possibly for good reason [a recent bipartisan report suggesting Obama's national security team is a mess - that the president has given no guidance to national security matters and the administration seems to be at a loss doesn't help the perception that they lack military bona fides] - but what I'm thinking specifically here is how the foreign policy gestures Obama has made since taking office - apologizing to Muslims for the supposed sins of American hubris, telling the Europeans that there's no such thing as American exceptionalism, shying away from a show of strength in Afghanistan and replacing it with an enervating intellectualism - even, I might add, cavalierly laying all blame for current economic crisis on Wall Street and big business and therefore by inference indicting capitalsim and the American way even though that does not paint an accurate picture of all the contributing factors - I'm wondering how this general ambivalence to the ideal of America and the utility of the projection of American power in the world trickles down and impacts not only the willingness of able candidates to serve. to bear that burden, but also, with possibly more cancerous consequences, impacts the willingness of the abiding society to honour and laud the principles upon which the military stands?
In short I guess what I'm wondering is how do you maintain the greatest military in the world if the population increasingly is of the opinion that the country and the ideals that ostensibly motivate it are no longer great or of especial importance? This is no doubt to put it too simply if not crudely but if China increasingly believes it is and deserves to be a super power, an elite nation, special - and America increasingly believes that such formulations are meaningless and not conducive to leading a happy and contented life - in other words, is increasingly sympathetic of a European view of reality - then China wins, no?
