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I don't (off the top of my head) remember my sources for claims about poverty being a mechanism for manning the US military, so I won't push the point. I'll lea
by dmos62 7y ago
I don't (off the top of my head) remember my sources for claims about poverty being a mechanism for manning the US military, so I won't push the point. I'll leave it at saying that I wish you were right.
- pjc50 7y agoYou're definitely right that it's a recruiting pressure - that and the free college and the path to naturalisation. But that only holds as long as the casualties are relatively low. And the ~4k dead and ~30k wounded of Iraq was relatively low compared to the ~58k dead of Vietnam. It's not clear what kind of non-nuclear war would bring that level of dead again, but I reckon restarting the Korean war would do it.