Our allies are largely standing aside on the military side of the struggle.
We will likely enlarge our Army and Marine Corps.
We like the results of our higher recruiting standsrds but will need to lower our recruiting standards to meet these new numbers. (Keep in mind that after lowering the current standards they will still be higher than our 1990 standards.)
Many people in our allied country would surely fight for the West if they were asked to fight by their governments.
So let's go out and recruit these citizens of our allies who want to fight but whose governments won't let them fight. Put them on the fast path to American citizenship:
I once liked the idea [of separate foreign mercenary units like Gurkhas in the British army] as a temporary program but changed my mind. If we can't get sufficient citizens to join, let's get those worthy of citizenship to join. Indeed, I mentioned the idea of doing this in that long post:
We need to rely on our own resources. Sure, perhaps we should step up recruitment for Americans-at-heart abroad and bring them into our military. This would make up for having Europeans-at-heart right here at home who only get worked up over bike path issues. But we would be creating new Americans and not relying on those who fight for pay.
So lets actively recruit abroad. Set up recruiting programs in countries that don't fight with us in the field to avoid stealing from militaries that do fight with us, then expand to nations who support us minimally. First emphasis should be on recruits in countries with advanced modern societies who can be integrated into our military more easily. Call it the Liberty Corps. In the end, American citizens committed to democracy will be in our military. That should be the bottom line.
And we can recruit in allied countries that allow their troops to deploy but not fight.
Remember, we could recruit all we want at home if we reduced our standards. Go to 1980 standards and we'd be home free. But our military likes the high quality recruits we get now. So let's be careful lowering our standards here. Some reductions can be accomplished. But there are high quality people abroad who have not given up on the defense of the West even if their governments have opted out of the fight.
Yes indeed, a Liberty Corps program could solve a bunch of problems.
