August 21, 2022
Want to Solve America’s Recruiting Crisis? Recruit Foreigners
Given a chance to address a serious recruiting crisis while strengthening alliances, the Pentagon should take it.
by Arshan Barzani
The Pentagon’s rosters are tens of thousands of troops short, as the department battles the worst recruiting crisis since the draft ended in 1973. Criminal records, drug use, and poor health bar three out of four Americans from serving without a waiver, while a booming civilian jobs market entices many of the rest. In response, the Pentagon ought to tap the largest pool of available talent: foreigners.
No self-respecting country should rely entirely on foreign troops. But enlisting some quickly fills the ranks with quality personnel. The British Army has long turned to Gurkhas, Fijians, and others from the Commonwealth, in part to make up for recruiting shortfalls. The Spanish Legion recruits from Hispanic countries and the French Foreign Legion from the world over.
Washington once grasped the sense of recruiting abroad. The Navy enlisted tens of thousands of Filipinos from 1900 to 1992, well past Philippine independence. They viewed the service as a way out of poverty and competed fiercely to join it. In the program’s last decade, as many as 100,000 Filipinos applied yearly for the 400 slots available—an acceptance rate ten times lower than Harvard’s.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/want-solve-america%E2%80%99s-recruiting-crisis-recruit-foreigners-204260
