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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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There's nothing the military could really do. While tempting for my own biases, "recruitment is down because woke institutions alienated poor conservative whites and catered to effete progressives" doesn't eat like a full meal to me. The woke ads didn't help, sure. And it also doesn't help that the current ruling ideology of the USA skims close to condemning the USA's very history and existence.

But fundamentally, the nationstate is past its expiration date. People need to belong to a tribe. Historically, the local church, one's birth neighborhood, and the ethnic nation filled that void, but now the internet exists. Globalization happened. These forces have channeled people into particularist tribes which are divorced from their geographic location.

So today, you can find people who would be willing to fight and die for LGBT rights, the white race, or classical liberalism if such armies were recruiting. Not so many willing to die for their hometown of Mobile, Alabama.

I expect militaries to regress to a pre-Napoleonic model in the future: an elite professional core with mercenaries who are in it for the cash and prizes.

Militaries cannot return to the pre-Napoleonic model because we don't live in a pre-Napoleonic economy. The median 17th century Irishman had basically zero choices for personal advancement other than military adventure. Whereas nowadays, particularly in the US, it's not that hard to make money without getting shot at or having to deploy to the Middle East.

In pre-Napoleonic militaries, mercenaries were often foreigners, in particularly the Swiss (poor region and neutral, so it was unlikely that they would stab you in the back). The US can just hire South Americans or such. Perhaps with citizenship as a reward.

Isn’t that how the US has worked since Vietnam killed all desire for a draft? A professional core of career soldiers, but also a bunch of single-tour grunts. It looks like the reenlistment rate is anywhere from 40 to 70 percent depending on service. And “cash and prizes” definitely have a lot to do with it. Unless you specifically mean plunder and pillage rather than state incentives?

There’s also the mandatory service model (Singapore, Korea, Switzerland…). It guarantees a constant supply of fresh recruits, but still requires a professional core. No hope of plunder there, though.

Really, I think the only time you don’t get this professional/mercenary distinction is under conscription.