Fewer Troops, More Missions Strain Military

Mounting strains on the U.S. armed forces are undermining the troops’ morale, shaking their confidence in the top leadership and stirring concern about the quality of new recruits and basic training, according to a survey of 12,000 officers and enlisted personnel.

The study found that, in a decade that has seen a shrunken military struggle with a substantial increase in overseas deployments, many officers and enlisted personnel have lost faith in their leaders’ ability to cope. They also question the leaders’ willingness to give their superiors an honest appraisal of problems in their field units.

Although service members remain strongly committed to the armed forces and its values, many officers and noncommissioned officers complain that working in the new climate is “simply no longer fun,” the survey found. It reported widespread complaints about declining readiness for battle along with poor pay and benefits, especially for the married people who make up a growing share of the force.

The survey comes as the military is facing increasing difficulty finding recruits to fill its ranks and is easing some entrance requirements. The Army, for example, has been planning a program to accept some young people without high school diplomas, although research has shown that those without diplomas are much more likely to wash out of the military.

Defense officials insist that they are not relaxing standards. Yet the survey found growing concern in the ranks that the troops who are now sent to operational commands from boot camp do not have the “quality” or depth of training they had in the past.

The research, which is to be formally released today, was conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, with Pentagon cooperation. The researchers also conducted 125 focus groups with officers and noncommissioned officers and were given access to internal surveys conducted by the individual services.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said that, although a few officials have seen the study, they would withhold comment until it is officially released.

The researchers noted that since the fall of the Berlin Wall, although the United States “has arguably never been more secure, its armed forces have never been busier.” As the active duty forces have shrunk in the period from 2.1 million to 1.4 million personnel and foreign deployments have been ordered 35 times, the services have begun to experience “stress fractures.”

The Air Force, for example, has quadrupled the number of personnel who are away from home base at any given time and is now flying the oldest fleet of aircraft ever, a senior commander said last year. The reserve forces have increased by 1,200% the number of personnel they contribute to active-duty missions.

Amid these pressures, the survey found that 95% of officers and enlisted personnel remain proud of their association with the military, and do not consider military standards or discipline too stringent. Despite its problems, the military may still be the finest ever fielded by this country, the researchers said.

Yet the survey found spirits flagging. Nearly half of respondents said morale in their units was not high.

And though participants rated leadership in their immediate commands more favorably, the researchers found evidence that confidence in top leadership is in rapid decline.

Two-thirds of troops surveyed said they don’t believe that “when my service’s senior leadership says something, you can believe it’s true.” (An internal Navy survey showed 49% of Navy officers unsatisfied with the Navy’s “overall” leadership. That figure jumped by nearly one-third from 1996 to 1999.)

Joseph J. Collins, the project’s director and a retired U.S. Army colonel, said these views reflect frustration that the top brass have sometimes appeared unwilling to tell civilian leaders the bad news about the military’s problems while continuing to take on more missions for their organizations.

Though field officers give frank assessments of their units’ problems, these views are “fluffed and buffed” by superiors, to look more positive, as they are passed up the chain of command, he said.

The study cited “a problem of trust, between seniors and subordinates, and between the field and Washington.”

Though the study did not intend to tackle the nettlesome social problems facing the services, it includes results on the performance of women that may prove controversial.

The survey found that substantial numbers of women in the services have questions about how well women are carrying their share of the burdens of duty and how well they would respond in wartime emergencies.

It said 66% of male junior noncommissioned officers and 51% of female junior noncommissioned officers did not agree with the statement that “women I know” in the forces would carry their share of the burden in these tough situations. (In the Navy, 36% of those surveyed said they “strongly agreed” or “agreed” that women they knew would pull their fair share of the load in combat or hazardous situations.)

Collins, the project director, speculated that these misgivings may reflect the fact that women are relatively new in many parts of the services. The concerns may diminish in time, he said.