A High-Quality Force

Over the past three years, the quality of recruits to the U.S. military has improved, a finding contrary to the conventional wisdom that troop quality has declined.

“Those who have been so quick to suggest that today’s wartime recruits represent lesser quality, lower standards, or lower class should be expected make an airtight case,” Tim Kane writes. “Instead, they have cited selective evidence, which is balanced by a much clearer set of evidence showing improving troop quality.”

Kane’s analysis considers the household income, level of education, race and ethnicity, and regional origin of military recruits.

“U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population,” Kane finds. “The slight dif­ferences are that wartime U.S. mil­itary enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on aver­age than their civilian peers.”

Read Who Are the Recruits? The Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Enlistment, 2003–2005
by Tim Kane, Ph.D.

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