America's 3rd Century Crisis - Military Decline
Why 77% of young Americans today are ineligible for military service, and what that means for the immediate future (also: a brief interlude on modern American psychiatry)
Picture this: you live in a large, prosperous nation, arguably the most prominent nation in the world. However, your government is bankrupt, and has been issuing more and more debased currency each day, inflating the economy. And, on top of that, foreigners from neighboring nations are flooding your borders, all while your country is dealing with the aftermath of a disease outbreak. Any idea which nation I’m describing?
The answer is - the Western Roman Empire! Weren’t expecting that, were you?
Now, I’m aware that comparing the U.S. to Rome is a very tired point (and not one I haven’t made before), and other publications like Vox and Salon have trotted out their own comparisons in recent years. Some articles place an insufferable amount of emphasis on January 6th as the catalyst for the fall of the American empire, as if that’s somehow the worst of our problems today (Politico even had the laughable audacity to compare Donald Trump to Julius Caesar). Personally, I believe you would need a very lazy intellect to conclude that those are the most salient similarities. Today, I think one of our closest connections, if not the closest connection, with the Roman empire of old is in our military - specifically, in the military decline that has been occurring for several years now.
It’s no secret that the U.S. Military has been receiving fewer and fewer recruits over the past few years, in no small part due to COVID-19 vaccine requirements and forced diversity training. But, despite the lack of enthusiasm to enlist, many Americans wouldn’t be able to even if they wanted. A recent study from the Pentagon found that 77% of Americans age 17 to 24 would not qualify for military service due to a combination of factors including physical health, mental health, and/or substance use.
According to StrongNation.org, the most common reason in youth who are disqualified for one reason alone is obesity (another troubling topic that we’ve covered already on this publication). An overwhelming 44% of youth are deterred for more than one reason, with substance abuse being the next most common deterrent. Education level and criminal background are the least common, only composing about 2% combined.
One of the major reasons for ineligibility, mental health, is a little bit harder to track. As some may know, anxiety is the most common form of mental illness in the U.S. today, often accompanied by depression. The cause for depression has often been categorized as a “chemical imbalance” in modern American medicine, with many believing that low serotonin and other vital levels were by default causing depression; this past year, however, the theory has been largely debunked. Anxiety, depression, and other acute mental health disorders have been over-diagnosed in today’s world because of this baseless theory, even leading thousands of young people to self-diagnose mental health disorders based on content consumed from social media. Now, that’s certainly a scary thought: TikTok is the new WebMD.
What’s even more concerning is that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is promoting mass, routine screenings for anxiety. Dr. Jonathan Shedler, a clinical psychiatry professor at UCSF, warns that routine anxiety screenings will lead to more over-diagnosis. Shedler, like many other critics of modern psychiatric practice, finds that the over-diagnosis of disorders has been eroding the human condition and causing people to jump to the nearest label to explain away their issues: “You can’t just carve the world into disorders and think you’re doing an adequate job of determining someone’s mental health needs,” Shedler asserts.
The perceived increase in mental health disorders following the COVID-19 lockdowns certainly isn’t helping the situation, either. CNBC recently published their own analysis of the task force’s recommendations and cited the story of Megan Whalen, a New Jersey resident diagnosed with anxiety, who said the following:
The pandemic made me afraid to leave home, my anxiety telling me anywhere outside of my childhood house was unsafe. I absolutely still struggle with feelings of dread and fear sometimes. It’s just a part of my life at this point, and I try to manage it as best as I can.
Based on this quote alone, I think it’s clear that the worst issue afflicting Whalen isn’t anxiety, but rather chronic idiocy. However, I will say in defense of Whalen and other hypochondriac snowflakes like her: they’ve only become over-diagnosed and under-informed because of the lies, baseless theories, and fearmongering of modern American institutions. These institutions, like CNBC and the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (not to mention the policymakers who put Whalen and others in the prison of mandated lockdowns), command so much trust, yet accomplish so much harm. And, as a result of these venomous institutions, our military ineligibility numbers will only continue to skyrocket.
As for the Roman Empire, what caused their military decline?
Invasions from barbaric tribes is the most commonly cited reason. Poor border enforcement and conflict with the Eastern Empire all softened the Western Roman Empire’s military base, allowing tribes like the Goths and the Visigoths to encroach on the Empire’s borders and ultimately invade. This resulted in the Sack of Rome in 410 AD by the Visigoth leader, Alaric, and the eventual fall of the Empire in 476 AD with the revolt of King Odoacer. While we may not be faced with any impending invasions or revolts from barbaric tribes, the U.S. is certainly no stranger to border crises. Despite this premonition, we can still find some encouragement in southern Republican figures like Ron DeSantis and Kari Lake taking a hard stance on border security and legal immigration. But until that comes to pass, our borders will continue to be flooded with illegal immigrants, thus further destabilizing the very same military forces that would be needed to combat the issue.
Another catalyst of Rome’s military decline was the governmental and financial corruption. The cronyism and favoritism that were rampant in the Western Roman Empire’s senate contributed to an overwhelming lack of trust and support for the Empire, and for the military by extension. Additionally, the debasement of the Roman denarius coin and the hyperinflation that resulted rapidly bankrupted both the Roman citizens and their government, thus depleting any financial backing that their military could hope for. Like border crises, inflation is far from a non-issue in the U.S. today; lauded economists continue to predict further financial hardship as a result of the Federal Reserve’s current monetary policies, a trend that’s quite apparent with product prices in our own everyday lives.
And finally, disease outbreaks: Rome actually suffered through several plagues prior to their eventual collapse, with the most noteworthy being the Antonine Plague (165 - 180 AD). Now, I hate to compare this to COVID-19, because doing so would validate everything that the establishment left wanted us to believe about COVID-19. The Antonine Plague’s death toll was worse than the COVID-19 U.S. death toll by a factor of about ten - and that’s using the CDC-reported death toll in the U.S., which I’d argue is at least somewhat exaggerated. Additionally, the socio-economic impact of the Antonine Plague far outstripped the impact of COVID-19 (strictly the disease; one could make a very strong case that the lockdowns caused comparable damage). With that said, it is still important to note that both outbreaks resulted in military decline.
So, what can be done about the current state of our military? The simple answer: give them something worth defending. We need to stop discharging our best men and women because of their own personal medical choices. We need to stop inundating their curriculum with identity politics and Marxist theory. And lastly, we need to embrace the principles of liberty and foster a culture that ought to be protected. Is it any wonder why strong young men aren’t jumping at the chance to serve their country, when its citizens label them as “toxic” just because of their sex and their personality? Who’s going to rally around protecting America’s children, when the same American institutions we entrust our children to are hell-bent on indoctrinating and mutilating them? If we have any hope of fending off the enemies beyond our borders, we first must address the enemies within our borders.