I dunno, the Pax Americana has been a little short on the pax as of late

The military is having a tough time meeting recruiting goals I suppose because fewer people want to go get shot at in a war that a majority of Americans now say has not made us safer.

What to do?

Well, the sensible solution, as offered in this piece by Christopher Preble, would be to scale back our commitments abroad:

Expanding the military is no solution. Since neither the Army nor the Marines can meet the existing recruiting goals, even with record high incentives, how would raising those recruiting goals — which is what expanding the Army would mean — do anything to address the fact that young people are increasingly skeptical of signing up to support the current administration’s foreign policy?

[…]

The current crisis in manpower did not begin with the occupation of Iraq, but it was made worse by it. The handover of security responsibilities to the Iraqi government should continue, and the Bush administration needs to make firm its pledge to reduce and eliminate the military deployment in that country.

Going forward, if Americans undertake new military operations, we should do so with a clear understanding of the costs and risks. These costs and risks multiply if we leave our men and women in uniform in foreign lands for indefinite periods of time.

For over a decade, we have asked more and more from our soldiers. They have responded honorably. But they cannot be everywhere, and they cannot do everything. And when their time is up, we should not be surprised if they walk away. Neither should we be surprised if fewer and fewer Americans step forward to take their place. More troops is not the answer. A more judicious use of these troops is.

Or, you could take Max Boot’s suggestion to start recruiting non-citizens for our apparently never-ending mission of policing the globe (a suggestion he originally made a few months ago):

The proposed Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act is targeted at children of undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. for more than five years but not born here. They would get legal status and become eligible for citizenship if they graduate from high school, stay out of trouble and either attend college for two years or serve two years in the armed forces. This bill, introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), drew 48 cosponsors in the Senate last year but failed to get a floor vote. It is likely to be reintroduced soon.

The DREAM Act is a great idea, but I would go further and offer citizenship to anyone, anywhere on the planet, willing to serve a set term in the U.S. military. We could model a Freedom Legion after the French Foreign Legion. Or we could allow foreigners to join regular units after a period of English-language instruction, if necessary.

[…]

Some letter writers invoke the specter of mercenaries leading to the fall of the U.S. as they supposedly led to the fall of Rome. That’s a misreading of Roman history. As classicist Victor Davis Hanson points out, by the 1st century AD, the legions “were mostly non-Italian and mercenary, and the empire still endured for nearly another 500 years.” If only the Pax Americana were to last half as long!

If only! Then we’d get the distinct privilege of listening to keyboard jockeys like Boot urging us on to more and more wars for another 250 years! Then we could give up once and for all this tedious notion of being a free Republic and assume our destiny (cue: Darth Vader breathing) as the Empire we were always meant to be! With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy!

Er, anyway…