The US Army War College’s academic journal just released a really scary essay about what lessons the military should learn from the ongoing war in Ukraine. The section that’s most upsetting and relevant to the average person is called Casualties, Replacements & Reconstitutions.
Basically, it says that if the military needs a lot of troops for large-scale combat operations, they’ll have to rethink the volunteer force from the 70s and 80s and move towards part-time conscription.
The report says that if the US were to get into a full-scale war, it would probably suffer around 36,000 casualties a day and need 8,000 replacements, again a day. It says that over the past two decades, the US has suffered around 50,000 casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s a lot of casualties in just two weeks of intense fighting!
The army is already struggling to recruit enough troops. Last year, they only got 15,000 recruits and they’re on track to get 20,000 less this year. Plus, the IRER, which is made up of people who aren’t in active service but could be called back if they need to be, has gone from 700,000 in 1973 to 76,000 now.
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