Military is trending regional and 'all in the family.' We need more diversity. 'Something for other people to do' isn't a healthy attitude for troops or national security.

James A. Winnefeld Jr. and Amy Schafer | Opinion contributors

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As tensions rise in several regions, possibly leading to new U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and other combat operations, it’s worth pausing to truly consider who fights our wars.

Across the spectrum of military ranks and occupations, “service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do,” then-Defense secretary Robert Gates said in a speech at Duke University in 2010. He pointed to the relatively few students who would be considering military service upon graduation as symptomatic of the growing civil-military divide.

With an active-duty force comprising merely 0.4% of the U.S. population, this divide between the military and the rest of society is unsurprising. However, and despite the services’ continued efforts, two trends are making it harder to bridge the divide: increased regional and familial concentration within the armed forces.

Why should this disturb us? Because of its subtle impact on the most important decision our nation’s leadership ever makes — when to put young men and women into harm’s way. It also undermines the military’s need for public support.

First, the facts: Having a relative who served in the military has become a critical indicator as to whether an individual will even consider military service. Among veterans under age 40, 60% have an immediate family tie to the military, compared to only 39% of civilians. Of the new recruits joining today, approximately 25% have a parent who has served. As time goes on, this pattern isolates military service; it is becoming a burden borne by an increasingly small number of families.

Similar trends emerge when examining the regional makeup of the force. Places where the military has historical roots, including locations close to military bases, draw more young men and women into the service. So 60% of new military recruits come from the South and the West, with the South alone contributing 36.9% of all recruits, while the Northeast and Midwest remain underrepresented relative to their population of people aged 18 to 24. In fact, half of the states in the U.S. contribute more than their fair share, and half contribute less. Though the service academies receive nominations from all 50 states, they are only one source of military commissions, focused solely on officers. Geographically, the military today is simply not representative of the U.S. population, depriving the armed forces of the organizational strength that comes from diversity.

With more focused geographic concentration — leading, for example, to no opportunity to regularly engage with a neighbor who has a daughter or son in uniform — many Americans lack firsthand knowledge of military service. Most must scroll through their Twitter feed, turn on CNN or rely on pop culture to get information. Greater geographical diversity would result in a more widespread understanding of the military among U.S. citizens and support for the services long after our current wars wind down.

The familial and geographic concentration within today’s military not only isolates important segments of our population from a personal understanding of military service. Importantly, it also could distort key variables that should govern decisions about the use of force. These decisions should reflect a balance between the extent to which U.S. national security interests are threatened in a given situation, and the implications of the use of force in protecting those interests in that same situation. The latter include whether to use force unilaterally; how much financial cost and opportunity cost elsewhere in the world are acceptable; how hard to push against international law; and the cost in blood for the young Americans who will bear the burden of combat.

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That last variable is the most critical. When the lion’s share of the nation is isolated from the consequences of the use of force, the threshold for that judgment will naturally be lower, and that is problematic in a democratic system. Indeed, Harvard’s Institute of Politics found in 2015 that, while 60% of youths ages 18 to 29 supported sending ground troops to fight ISIS, 85% would probably or definitely not join the military if additional troops were needed. The willingness to allow service to be borne by others has led to an abdication of responsibility for the past 16 years of war by a large swath of the American people. The fact that the war in Afghanistan was almost completely ignored during the 2016 presidential campaign illustrates the point.

How do we address the twin problems of geographic and familial concentration among service members? Walking away from the All Volunteer Force (AVF) is not the answer. That would hamstring the highly professional force we have worked so hard to build. Rather, the military should focus even more on diversifying its recruiting efforts and talking to more young Americans about the benefits of serving. This means reaching out more aggressively to underrepresented regions. It will also demand a more concerted effort to ensure gender, ethnic and social class representation. Yes, this will cost more, but such representation is not only necessary to ensure the efficacy of the All-Volunteer Force — it will also give us the best possible future military by better reflecting the makeup of the nation it serves.

The United States possesses the best fighting force in the world, primarily because of the unprecedented high quality of the men and women who volunteer to serve. We must not take the AVF for granted, but we should redouble our efforts to appeal to all Americans, rather than relying on offshoots of military families and areas with historical ties to the military. We don’t yet have a warrior caste, but without outreach like this, it is simply a matter of time.

James A. Winnefeld Jr, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, served as the ninth vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Amy Schafer is a research associate at the Center for a New American Security and author of Generations of War.

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