Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 99

ALL-VOLUNTEER FORCE

In an effort to aid lawmakers and policy makers
in ensuring the continued success of the AVF, this
article applies an operational design approach from
U.S. joint doctrine to frame the environment, define
the strategic problem, and propose the broad outlines
of solutions to problems of enlisted recruitment and
retention. The intent is to stimulate and focus further
research and discussion.

Current Views on the Problem
The problems the military faces are real: the force
requires quality enlistees, a civil-military divide does exist,
and the current level of required funding for the AVF is
fiscally unsustainable. Moreover, these salient issues are
interrelated, and any approach that fails to link solutions
to all the different parts of the problem in a holistic way
will not address the root, systemic issues that put the
AVF’s future at risk.
Those who value the status of U.S. military members
as elite professionals place a premium on the quality of
military personnel. But, while the military has focused on
improving recruiting efforts, it faces significant challenges in getting those quality personnel. The AVF’s major
enlistment challenges each can be placed in one of three
bins: the decreasing quality pool of potential recruits, a decreasing willingness among the youth within the public to
serve in the military, and the unsustainable costs of today’s
volunteer force.
Shrinking pool of potential recruits. Recruitment for
officer corps talent is relatively sound. However, the main
risk to the AVF is recruitment of sufficient quality personnel to fill the enlisted ranks in the face of a dwindling
talent pool available to the U.S. military.
Decreasing willingness to serve in the military. To
complicate the recruiting challenge, although the military
as an institution remains highly regarded by the public,
there is clear evidence of declining interest among young
Americans to serve in the military. Those who see the
AVF’s problems in terms of a civil-military divide promote
different concepts for service requirements and opportunities for U.S. citizenry. U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel and retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal champion two
distinctive approaches. Each proposes a form of national
service aimed at youth.
Since 2004, Rangel has regularly introduced legislation to reinstate the military draft; however, it routinely receives little support from colleagues.1 On the
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2015

other hand, as head of the Aspen Institute’s Franklin
Project, McChrystal is leading a separate effort that
aims to make national service more attractive to youth
by expanding both opportunities and expectations for
voluntary public service.2 Rangel’s approach abolishes
the AVF, replacing it with involuntary service under a
draft system; McChrystal’s makes the AVF a possible
subset of a broader national service voluntary system
that provides training and benefits calculated to better
attract recruits.
Unsustainable cost of the all-volunteer force.
Some, including members of the Department of Defense
(DOD) and Congress, view the AVF issue primarily
through a fiscal lens. They aim to save the AVF by finding some way to balance the need to provide increases
in competitive compensation and benefits with the
ability to pay for the force. Advocates of this approach
are exploring compensation reform, focusing on DOD
healthcare, retirement, and benefits packages.3 They
realize that additional fiscal obligations associated with
increases in benefits and pay will be unsustainable in the
long run, threatening the overall viability of the AVF.
Broad environmental scanning—the “purposeful
search in the environment for relevant information”—enables researchers to see these intersections of the problem
and frame it to develop solutions.4 Joint doctrine provides
the p olitical, military, economic, social, information, and
infrastructure (PMESII) construct, which is helpful to
analyze and determine such interrelationships.5 Although
all factors of PMESII influence the viability of the AVF,
three are most relevant and are most interrelated: political, military, and social.

The Political Framework: Balancing
Quantity and Quality of its New
Talent
Congress recognizes that to sustain the U.S. military
as a viable and sufficient instrument of national power, a
steady and sufficient flow of fully qualified volunteers is
required. Congress determines sufficiency by mandating
end strength and resourcing the military through budget
appropriations.6 Congress also establishes through law the
minimum quality standards the military can accept in an
enlisted recruit.7
DOD has long managed this quantity-quality tension
with two tools: policy for managing the system, and incentives for acquiring and retaining talent.
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