I was recently researching our history of military service when I came across a University of Michigan study titled Americas Military Population, by David R Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal. The study covers the post revolution time period up until the current day and gives a percentage of those actively serving in the military as compared with our total population.
The study shows that during the post revolution time period up until the Civil War around 0.5% of the US population was actively serving as military personnel. During the Civil War this number jumped to just over 3%. From the Civil War up until the First World War this number was once again below 1%. During WWI the number grew to slightly less than 3%, again falling below 1% until the Second World War. During the Second World War nearly 9% of the U.S. Population was serving at any one time. This number fell to below 3% for the Korean War and below 2% for the Vietnam War. This participation has continued a downward trend to nearly 0.5% serving as military personnel today.
In fairness these statistics only include those currently on active duty (It’s unlikely but it could be that we have just as many men and women serving they just don’t stick around as long). However, according to these statistics around 0.5% seems to be the historical “resting heart rate” of the country. What is worth noting today is that we are not resting. We are currently fighting a war on two fronts and we still sit near that 0.5%. This is the lowest percentage during a war cited in the study.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Those are interesting numbers. I wonder though what is the best inference to draw from them. One possible inference is that we are not as committed to winning the War on Terror as we were to winning WWII.
However, I suspect the more reasonable inference is that the WoT is unlike any war the US has ever fought. In fact, the WoT has more than just two fronts, Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also the border security front, the intelligence front, the finance/money trail front, the education/cultural front, the public relations front, the third-world economic development front, etc. In other words, Americans are participating in the fight against Islamic fascism in arenas other than military service.
Good point...Military victory is absolutely essential, but the long war will only be won if we win on non-military fronts as well.
Fortunately, as Abe Greenwald notes, of late we appear to be doing both.
I couldn't agree more. However, the question these statistics bring to mind for me is: can we sustain the military front with these numbers? The answer may be yes but I'm not sure.
Would this not be a result of a different generation of military strategy and technology? We fight wars now very differently than we fought in World War I & 2. Massive trench and ground warfare are a thing of the past as we become more advanced and more tactical with our maneuvers. We used to win wars by overwhelming the enemy with our sheer number of troops, we now win because of our advanced technology and military intelligence.
I would argue that 10% of the American population serving in today's military would prove as an unnecessary surplus. No?
I'd agree that 10% would be unnecessary at this time. However, 3-4% would be great. Men and women are pulling 18 month duty, home for a year, then going back because we don't have anyone else to do it. This can only last for so long before the services (although probably not the Air Force) have serious recruitment/retention problems.
With due respect to our non-military WoT fighters stationed inside the beltway, a mere 2x increase in our active duty military (1.0% of pop.) would significantly help morale, family life, etc. within our armed forces.
Post a Comment