Military Recruitment and the Changing Nature of Warfare

[Questionable]

I made this post on another communist forum, but I'd like to share the discussion here as well.

Recently I stumbled upon some statistics regarding US military recruitment. The common Marxist conception seems to be that the military preys upon low-income workers and minorities by promising them a way out of their otherwise wretched lives. However, statistics show that the majority of military members actually come from high-income backgrounds.


U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officers who do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 percent came from the wealthiest quintile. minorities are not overrepresented in military service.

I want to take a materialist crack at it; the days of the "common soldier" that harken back to the 20th century are gone. Just look at the United States military. It is highly technologized (I don't think that's a word but I'm making it one) and the common soldier is expected to know the ins-and-outs of the equipment he's using. Computers, robotics, these are all commonplace on the battlefield. Not only do soldiers have to work alongside these things, the military also needs individuals with the technical skills for creating and controlling them. So, would it not make more sense for the US military to begin targeting the more prestigious groups such as the petty-bourgeois youth, who are generally possess more advanced knowledge on such things because of the privilege their social position has, than low-income workers who are less educated?
I think it's undeniable that the military is more interested in technology than bodies. I've seen countless military advertisements highlighting uniformed soldiers managing far-off battles in rooms full of computers, or army engineers talking about how much they've learned. This could be what's causing the recruitment shift.


What do you comrades think?


Link to the article: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Income doesn't mean much in the bourgois-proletariat dichotomy especially when you're taking such a diverse number as the top 20%. I think you'd be very hard pressed to find the son or daughter of a CEO joining up as a squaddie. Having said that, yes modern armies are more technology-heavy and it'd certainly facilitate the training process if those you recruit and indoctrinate are already computer-literate.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Well I think it depends on what you consider "high-income". Check out chart 2 in the report(and remember its the Heritage Foundation we're talking about, an extremely right-wing organization that's known for presenting very dubious "studies"). A majority of these recruits MAY come from families making $50,000 a year and less with only 3% coming from families making more than $100,000 a year. That's not exactly living fat IMO.

[LiberationTheologist]

What the poster above said. Define middle class first then we will talk. The numbers they use are as always distorted bullshit.

Middle class to me - within -/+ 25% of median family income which is about 50,000 dollars.

Not to mention this study is purporting to represent the incomes of military people AFTER they enter the military, not before. Do I have that right right?

However it would matter little to me if they come from the lower class, they are ethically decrepit filth, if they come from the upper class they are morally decrepit filth. I know that morality and ethics is unfortunately not well instilled in any economic class

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Umm what? Ethnically decrepit filth? What makes a poor soldier ethnic filth? What does that even mean. And I don't know about you but I think it would make a revolution a lot easier if we had soldier supporters...

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well I think it depends on what you consider "high-income". Check out chart 2 in the report(and remember its the Heritage Foundation we're talking about, an extremely right-wing organization that's known for presenting very dubious "studies"). A majority of these recruits MAY come from families making $50,000 a year and less with only 3% coming from families making more than $100,000 a year. That's not exactly living fat IMO.

While it's true that 50,000 a year is not "high income", it's also apparently true that the common left-wing trope of military recruiters going into the inner cities and dragooning poor minorities into the armed forces is false. Considering what the median income is in the USA, 50 000 dollars a year is doing pretty good.

I wouldn't count on too much support from the USA's military. Maybe if there was a draft, but...

[Psy]

Technology is not really a problem since industrialization breaks down the labor process into simple operations which is why China has no problem recruits turning poor tech skills into modern soldiers, sailors and pilots with good tech skills. Also this comes back to the same flawed logic that led the major power of WWI to think it was going to be a short war, they thought technology would make it short not understand the enemy also had technology making it a war of attrition.

Even without nuclear weapons, technology has advanced to the point any war between major powers (for example if China and Japan went to war over the stupid rocks they have been getting all worked up over recently) will result in massive casualties and require drafts to fully mobilize the populations.

[hetz]

Even without nuclear weapons, technology has advanced to the point any war between major powers (for example if China and Japan went to war over the stupid rocks they have been getting all worked up over recently) will result in massive casualties and require drafts to fully mobilize the populations.
That war can only be a war on the sea and air, and thus would not result in such massive casualties.
China can't invade Taiwan, much less Japan.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

While it's true that 50,000 a year is not "high income", it's also apparently true that the common left-wing trope of military recruiters going into the inner cities and dragooning poor minorities into the armed forces is false. Considering what the median income is in the USA, 50 000 dollars a year is doing pretty good.

I wouldn't count on too much support from the USA's military. Maybe if there was a draft, but...
Yeah I understand that but I just don't think it's right to call 50,000 high income and the premise seems to be the majority of new recruits are from high income homes. The majority don't come from poverty but most aren't rich.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

And yes right now would troops support a communist revolution? No. But you don't get friends by calling them names. And I still want to know what the fuck the term ethnic was used for.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think it's right that the source of this should ring alarm bells. They obviously have an ideological reason for looking into this: think tanks don't do anything else.

So I think that it's right that their presentation is skewed in terms of defining "well-off". In that first chart, probably everyone up to the 5th quintile (and even then the low-end of that) starting at $65K would be considered "middle class". Two teachers making 20,000 would make them "well off" according to the heritage foundation. It would mean that a staring cop in Oakland ($70K a year) is in this top quintile, just to concertize these categories. So someone with two union working parents or someone whose parents are a professional are included in this top quintile.

Second, the title raises another question. It says that this is a study of enlisted officers and men. So included in these figures are ruling class people and careerists who go to military schools and come from elite backgrounds. Considering the beurocracy of the military, this is a sizable chunk that would throw off any look at income-backgrounds. It would be interesting to see how the backgrounds of officers compare to short-timers looking for money or direction or a way out of town after high school.

Finally, having said all that, there is probably some truth in this - and I think that is that demographics in the military have changed. The enlistees are much more likely to be white and rural than they would have been over a decade ago. After the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, the military began having trouble meeting recruitment quotas - especially in urban areas. I think before the military did target urban "rust-belt" areas and the like and people often believed that there was little chance of an actual dangerous military confrontation (after the first Gulf War). After the wars in Afghanistan began, recruitment droped in cities and so I think places that were more suburban and rural, first were more suseptable to pro-war sentiment, but also in economic decline.

[Psy]

That war can only be a war on the sea and air, and thus would not result in such massive casualties.
China can't invade Taiwan, much less Japan.
China has bombers that can bomb Japanese cities, Japan has bombers the can bomb Chinese cities. Both have airborne units that can be dropped on other and both have navies capable of landing troops on each others shores.

[hetz]

Yeah, if they had you as their strategist the Germans would have surely succeeded with the Seelowe, the Italians would have taken Malta etc...
:rolleyes: