The Routledge Handbook of War and Society

Iraq and Afghanistan

Steven Carlton-Ford, Morten G. Ender, Steven Carlton-Ford, Morten G. Ender

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415567329
• eBook ISBN: 9781136919381
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This new handbook provides an introduction to current sociological and behavioral research on the effects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan represent two of the most interesting and potentially troubling events of recent decades. These two wars-so similar in their beginnings-generated different responses from various publics and the mass media; they have had profound effects on the members of the armed services, on their families and relatives, and on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Analyzing the effect of the two wars on military personnel and civilians, this volume is divided into four main parts:

Part I: War on the Ground: Combat and Its Aftermath

Part II: War on the Ground: Non-Combat Operations, Noncombatants, and Operators

Part III: The War Back Home: The Social Construction of War, Its Heroes, And Its Enemies

Part IV: The War Back Home: Families and Youth on the Home Front

With contributions from leading academic sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, military researchers, and researchers affiliated with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), this Handbook will be of interest to students of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, military sociology and psychology, war studies, anthropology, US politics, and of youth.

Steven Carlton-Ford is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati. He recently served for five years as the editor of Sociological Focus.

Morten G. Ender is professor of sociology and Sociology Program Director at West Point, the United States Military Academy. He is the author of American Soldiers in Iraq (Routledge 2009).

Part I
War on the ground: combat and its aftermath

1
Fighting two protracted wars

Recruiting and retention with an all-volunteer force

Susan M. Ross

Following nearly a decade of continual troop involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates summarized the conundrum involved in fighting two protracted wars with an all-volunteer force (AVF). On the one hand, Gates (Department of Defense [DoD] 2008) noted optimistically:

Overall, our service men and women and their families have shown extraordinary resilience. Morale is high, as is recruiting and retention – particularly among units either in or just returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldier for soldier, unit for unit, the Army is the best trained, best led, and best equipped it has ever been.

On the other hand, he continued:

This is the second longest war in American history since our Revolution, and the first to be fought with an AVF since independence. To be sure the stress is real. There are metrics that need to be watched – such as the number of waivers granted to new recruits, suicides, as well as incidents of divorce and other signs of wear on military families.

Striking an even blunter appraisal of the situation while testifying before the Senate Armed Service Committee, US Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard A. Cody (2008) stated, “Today’s Army is out of balance. The current demand for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the sustainable supply and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen echoed the same message during a similarly timed press conference, noting, “It is a very fragile situation. … There is this incredibly delicate balance between continuing in two wars [and] making sure we don’t break those same forces” (Bender 2008: A1).

By the middle of 2009, more than 1.8 million American soldiers had served in Afghanistan and Iraq since the outset of these wars in October 2001 and March 2003 (DoD 2009). Although 1.8 million soldiers represent less than one percent of the entire US population, they represent nearly three-quarters of the approximately 2.5–2.7 million personnel who comprise the active duty and reserve components of the AVF (US Census 2003, 2009). While there is little doubt that the AVF has created a stronger fighting force compared with that which can be developed and maintained under a system of conscription (Bacevich 2008; O’Hanlon 2004), fighting the global war on terror (GWOT) has created tremendous strains on the AVF, leaving many (including top military leaders) to question the viability of the AVF.

This chapter examines challenges faced by the American AVF as it has undertaken heavy troop engagement for nearly a decade in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly recruitment and retention within the US Army. Given that neither war has drawn to a close, this analysis is necessarily incomplete. With the Taliban’s movement into Pakistan and the uncertain political stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Obama announced in late 2009 the plan to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, bringing the troop levels in the region to nearly 100,000 personnel (Obama 2009). Meanwhile, in Iraq, combat troop drawdown has been slower than anticipated, as President Obama had to backslide on his campaign pledge to bring combat troops home within 16 months of his taking office (DeYoung 2009). Military leaders serving in Iraq suggest that American soldiers could be engaged in combat until at least 2015 (Ricks 2009). Before turning to the issues of recruitment and retention for an AVF, it is important to provide a brief historical context to the emergence of the AVF as an alternative military manpower strategy to conscription.

From conscription to an AVF

The current structure of an AVF developed on the heels of the widely unpopular draft of the Vietnam War era. Having campaigned on a promise to end the draft, President Nixon authorized what became popularly known as the Gates Commission to study the viability of ending conscription and moving to an all-volunteer military structure (Rostker 2006). Although the Commission members were divided on the feasibility of such a structure, they ultimately recommended that the US end the draft and build its national forces through the recruitment of volunteers who would serve as professional soldiers. Having accepted the recommendation, Congress eliminated the draft in 1973 (Rostker 2006). The transition to an AVF has generated ongoing debate between proponents of national service, conscription, or volunteerism as a military manpower strategy (Moskos 1988). Segal (1989) identified five social trends that affected the choice of the AVF over national service or conscription:

• the increase in complexity of military technology;

the increased American involvement in peace-keeping missions and other forms of “lower-intensity” warfare;

• the expansion of the welfare state, which reversed the citizen–state relationship from citizens having an obligation to the state to a system of “entitlements” of citizenship;

• the “citizenship revolution” that broke the barrier to women’s and minority participation in the military, allowing for larger recruiting pools; and

• declining fertility rates following the baby boom, which produce fewer males for a draft pool between the ages of 18 and 21.

As a consequence of ending conscription, the military was transformed from an institution built on the obligation of a citizenry to serve their country to an institution required to compete with the civilian employment sector for suitable “employees” (Moskos 1977; Moskos and Wood 1988). In addition, the movement to an AVF seriously reduced the ability of the country to depend upon traditional citizen soldiers for wartime troop expansion (see e.g. Abrams and Bacevich 2001; Burk 2001; Cohen 2001; Moskos 2002). Although there is general scholarly consensus regarding these first major consequences of the military manpower policy shift, much debate exists as to the extent to which the emergence of the AVF resulted in a “gap” between the military and civilian sectors of society (see Rohall et al. 2006 for a review).

In addition to the demise of the draft, there was a second, “quieter,” post-Vietnam policy that has greatly increased reliance upon the Reserve and National Guard during the GWOT, the likes of which has not been seen since the Korean War (Binkin and Kaufmann 1989). Frustrated by President Johnson’s refusal to mobilize the Reserve as part of the troop escalation, Army Chief of Staff General Creighton Abrams returned from Vietnam swearing to ensure that America would never again go to war without pulling reservists from all walks of life. Abrams crafted the total force policy, which placed combat support heavily in the hands of the Reserve and ensured the need for the National Guard to round out combat brigades (Sorley 1991). Much of this policy and the expansion in the number of reserve troops available to the president went largely unnoticed by the public (Binkin and Kaufmann 1989) and, for that matter, the reservists themselves (Booth et al. 2007; Musheno and Ross 2008).

In drawing this all-too-brief history lesson to a close, note that while the US has been functioning with an all-volunteer military force since the early 1970s, Presidents Carter and Reagan did bring about the reinstitution of the military draft registration system in the early 1980s (Chambers 1987; Segal 1989); young men are still required to register with the Selective Service within 30 days of their eighteenth birthday. Despite this ongoing system of registration, there seems little chance of the US moving to conscription from the Selective Service rosters. Gallup poll data gathered in October 2004 indicated that only 14.3 percent of Americans support a military draft (Gallup Organization 2004). Likewise, a 2004 House of Representatives vote on a bill to reinstate the draft suffered a decisive loss with a 402:2 vote (Crabtree 2009).

The attacks of 9/11 brought about neither a national call for additional volunteers for the armed services nor public or political support for conscription, ensuring that the people fighting the GWOT would be the men and women of the AVF. Although it is not uncommon for American military peacetime participation rates to comprise less than 1 percent of the population, typically, there are spikes in the participation rate during extended wars, with three percent in World War I, nine percent in World War II, and about two percent during the Korean and Vietnam Wars (Segal and Segal 2004). The proportion of Americans bearing the military cost of the GWOT has remained below one percent of the total population.

Recruiting new troops to an AVF under the GWOT

Recognizing the strain on the forces and problems regarding military recruitment, then-presidential-candidate Barack Obama stated on his campaign Web site, “A nation of 300 million strong should not be struggling to find enough qualified citizens to serve” (Obama 2008). Although intended to lend an inspirational voice to military recruitment, President Obama’s campaign statement was oversimplistic. Although there are more than 300 million Americans, the primary military recruiting target group is young people between the ages of 17 and 24 years, who represent slightly less than 10 percent of the nation’s total population (Bicksler and Nolan 2006). After factoring in all of the dis-qualifiers to military service such as lack of educational achievement, poor physical health and fitness, over- and underweight, and criminal background, the Pentagon estimates that only 25 percent of America’s young people between the ages of 17 and 24 years are qualified for service in the armed forces (Miles 2009). In addition to being qualified to serve, new youth recruits must also have an interest to serve. As tracked by the DoD, youth propensity to serve dropped in recent years to about 10 percent following over a decade of relative stability at near 15 percent (Bicksler and Nolan 2006).

Faced with the wartime decline in recruitment of qualified and interested youth enlistees (particularly before the 2008 economic recession) the Army responded by opening recruitment to some previously unqualified individuals. Much media attention was given to the Army’s shortfall in meeting its educational attainment goal among new recruits (Bender 2009; Scott Tyson 2009) and the increased number of “conduct waivers” for criminal offenses (e.g. misdemeanor drug offenses and some felony convictions) among recruits (Scott Tyson 2008a). Additional controversial programs included the Army’s temporary increase in the maximum enlistment age for the reserve from 35 to 42 years (Miles 2006) and the decision to open recruitment to skilled immigrants in possession of temporary visas, a program that has not been available since the Vietnam War (Preston 2009). By the beginning of 2009, the Army had also introduced a waiver program to allow overweight recruits to be given provisional enlistments (Lubold 2009a). The cost of recruiting, particularly given the Army’s goal of an additional 65,000 troops, has not come cheap. While the DoD has been increasing its advertising budget for recruiting since 1994, it accelerated these efforts since the outset of the GWOT and has also drastically increased enlistment bonus expenditures (Bicksler and Nolan 2006).

The heavy emphasis on financial recruiting incentives, coupled with a long-standing correlation between the youth unemployment rate and the military’s ability to attract high-quality youth enlistees (see Bicksler and Nolan 2006), has prompted the term “economic draft” to describe the unequal distribution of social classes in the AVF (Zweig 2008). The research concerning social class participation rates in an AVF is somewhat consistent, finding that neither the highest nor the lowest socioeconomic groups have strong rates of military service. Rather, this burden continues to be borne disproportionately by the lower, although not the lowest, classes (see Kilburn and Asch 2003; Kleykamp 2006; Segal and Segal 2004); however, military fatalities in Iraq show no social class patterning (Ender 2009). Some scholars argue that the social class inequality of service as well as the overrepresentation of African-Americans (discussed later) within the AVF are actually strengths of the institution as they provide a reasonable avenue for social class mobility; better compensation and health care benefits than individuals of similar age, experience, ...

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• The Editors
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I War on the ground: combat and its aftermath
• Part II War on the ground: non-combat operations, non-combatants, and operators
• Part III The war back home: the social construction of war, its heroes, and its enemies
• Part IV The war back home: families and young people on the home front
• Index