Army Doesn't Have Enough Soldiers for Potential Wars with China and Russia, Review Committee Says

Well what a surprise.

Army Doesn't Have Enough Soldiers for Potential Wars with China and Russia, Review Committee Says

The Army is undermanned for a conflict with China or Russia, potential future fights that could expand across several geographic regions, a new report by a committee tasked with reviewing the 2022 National Defense Strategy has found.

The service specifically does not have the number of soldiers needed for what would likely be an intensive island-hopping campaign in the Pacific and subsequent urban battles in major metropolitan cities in Asia, according to the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, which was created by Congress.

"We have to have an Army that's sufficiently large that it can operate in all of these places simultaneously," Eric Edelman, the commission vice chair and George W. Bush-era under secretary of defense for policy, told lawmakers Tuesday. "It's very hard to imagine a conflict in the Indo-Pacific that doesn't become global very quickly."

The review indicates a need for greater investments in the military. Traditionally, national security-focused reports, particularly to Congress, lean toward giving more money to the Pentagon -- which has a budget that dwarfs any other country's defense spending, including allies.


I would agree that our force structure is too small to fight World War III, which seems to be the objective here, but I don't see it getting much bigger without some sort of draft, which at least for now seems off the table. Of course the other angle of this is that these reports always seem to come out at budget time, but we may have to face the reality that we can no longer field a superpower sized military, and need to downsize our commitments to match the actual military strength that we're able to muster.

 

urban battles in major metropolitan cities in Asia,

Which war is this?

 

I assume they plan to have us fight block by block in Taiwan.

 

That wouldn't be feasible. Too much to ask simply to prevent a unification.

 

Hey I'm not the one trying to staff for World War III.

 

Apparently even Ukraine has enough to fight Russia. As for China, good luck trying to invade the US.

 

Soldiers will not be needed for WW III. I am sure China and Russia both know this.

 

The word you want is "invasion". That is no more "unification" than the Korean War, the Vietnam War, or the war going on now in Ukraine.

 

I don't think that's what they're talking about... I mean I been saying the same thing about Russia (not being able to invade the US...) but we still needa send gazillion$ to Ukraine to 'protect global democracy.' Taiwan is a democracy too. Is it different?

 

Who needs an army when everybody nukes everybody and the world ends?

 

Nukes wont end the world. Worst they could do is knock us back to the stone age. Even that is unlikely. Though certainly most people would die and the world would be a very unpleasant place for a very long time... any surviving militaries would be invaluable in the resulting chaos.

 

the right should be happy, fewer soldiers means less spending, they want less government employees

 

I'm no expert , I'll say this up front. I would think any full out war with China will likely require conscription?

 

Is it likely that China will attack America?

 

It looks like the recruiting situation wasn't really getting better as I thought.

The Army Is Losing Nearly One-Quarter of Soldiers in the First 2 Years of Enlistment

The Army is grappling with a staggering attrition rate among newly enlisted troops, even as recent recruiting figures suggest the service is clawing its way out of a yearslong enlistment crisis.

Nearly one-quarter of soldiers recruited since 2022 have failed to complete their initial contracts, according to internal Army data reviewed by Military.com. While the Army's recruiting totals look solid on paper, a high dropout rate raises serious doubts about whether those numbers are an accurate portrayal of how well the service is manned.

It remains unclear why the Army is losing so many soldiers, but one explanation could be the declining quality of its recruiting pool. One-quarter of all enlistees last year had to go through at least one of the Future Soldier Preparatory Courses, which were set up as a sort of silver bullet for recruiting woes -- getting applicants up to snuff with academic or body fat enlistment standards before they ship out to basic training.

 

U.S. Army recruitment has reportedly reached high levels not seen in 15 years. The news was shared on X by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Army enlisted around 350 soldiers per day in December 2024. In 2022, the Army missed its recruitment goal by 15,000.Feb 5, 2025
US Army recruitment reaches highest level in 15 years

 

A quick google search shows that the Army has 433,000 active duty personnel and 498,000 personnel in the Reserves and National Guard.

Our country is going underwater in debt, and I don’t believe the American public would support getting involved in a gigantic war in the Pacific unless we were attacked directly first.

Russia’s ground forces are about as formidable as any other second or third rate army, so there is little reason to worry about them.

For now, what we have is good enough.

 

Well I think the size of our military should be right sized to match our commitments worldwide. By that standard, I don't think we have near enough troops.

 

We do not, which is why there are over 250,000 civilians working just for the Army.

And that is just DoD employees. For the DoD as a whole, and you get over 800,000 civilian employees for the Department of Defense. And easily add at least another 50% for the contractors (560,000).

It always amazes me that more people do not realize that much of the bloat in the DoD is not actually the military, but the almost insane number of civilians that work in the department. Over 1/3 of DoD employees are civilians. And there are almost as many contractors working in the DoD as there are civilians. So in the end, less than 1/2 of those being paid "by the military" are actual military members.

When one is actually aware that there are 1.2 million full time military members. And freaking over 1.3 million civilians, either direct DoD employees or contractors.

And this was not always the case. Most of the giant influx of civilians happened in the 1990s when the military was cut too much, and because of limits to how many could be in uniform they resorted to hiring contractors and civilians. Something that is still going on to this day. Entire segments of their job which once the military did itself is now done by civilians or contractors.

 

Well, if anyone was thinking that robots could solve this problem I have some bad news. I saw a headline a few weeks ago that the military trial of dog robot models failed as the canine robots couldn't hide from discovery by spotter drones in the air and so it failed the test. Humanoid robots are next on the check list to try out.

 

Perhaps you could see if there are any reds under the bed and recruit them if they don't have any heel spurs.

 

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