Recycling Servicemembers: A System to Mitigate Personnel Shortages and Societal Harm During the Era of Great Power Competition
Karl Umbrasas
Introduction
The United States military anticipates a manpower problem in the era of great power competition that will require creative approaches to filling its ranks1. The need for servicemembers may necessitate prioritization of able-bodied males and females to operational billets and combat specialties. This prioritization must naturally draw capable personnel away from non-combat roles. Maladapted servicemembers, who at one time were considered candidates for expeditious involuntary separation, must be recycled to rear missions to allow the maximum number of mission-capable servicemembers closer proximity to the fight. Expeditious involuntary separation must become a rare process that occurs only under special circumstances. Recycling servicemembers to rear missions will concurrently provide a venue for supervised rehabilitation of the problems that made them unfit for forward missions. The recycling of unfit servicemembers benefits not only the military mission but also society, which will not receive influxes of ex-servicemembers with unmitigated social and psychological problems.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/recycling-servicemembers-system-mitigate-personnel-shortages-and-societal-harm-during-era
