Demography, recruiting, and vigorous veterans

To the Editor:

Dr. George H. Quester's excellent article, "Demographic Trends and Military Recruitment: Surprising Possibilities" (Parameters, Spring 2005) covers many contemporary trends, and entertains many scenarios, in its effort to plot the shape of future recruitment based on today's patterns. His research is particularly valuable for an organization that has traditionally had real concerns about finding young men and women to replace experienced, but aging, warfighters. I was somewhat surprised then to find that he did not address one particularly significant trend that might also affect military recruitment, namely the ability to extend what he calls soldiers' "stamina of youth" with increasingly sophisticated biotechnologies. As the baby-boomer population has aged, interest and research in age-management have only increased, and Dr. Quester's point that retirement ages are increasing everywhere but in the military is important for this reason: people are retiring later, in part because they can perform longer.

As a culture, we tend to equate "productivity" with the extension of desktop work (or even just the ability to drive one's car to Bingo Night) into our 80s, but this should not distract us from the reasonable expectation that hormone optimization, anti-oxidant strategies, stem cell research, somatic gene therapies, and nutrigenomics will extend peak physical performance into our 50s and 60s in the very near future. Already we see this trend developing among elite athletes, many of whom are now benefiting from years of optimized nutrition and other interventions. It is not uncommon to find 40-year-old football players, triathletes, and swimmers who are able to physically compete, and mentally outperform, many younger athletes. Rather than viewing aging athletes as having no "useful role," many teams are beginning to appreciate the benefits of keeping veterans on the field. Not only does it reduce the pressure to have to replace older generations (a pressure that could lead to drops in standards), but it means the newest recruits have excellent leaders and mentors alongside them at the moments when it matters most--no small advantage when teaching 20-year-olds how to behave like professionals.

One does not need to be a rogue scientist to anticipate that increased understanding of diet, genes, and other biological systems is going to .help men and women be able to keep up (if not exceed) younger persons who do not avail themselves of similar age-management biotechnologies. Warfighter age-management may mean that we no longer have to choose, in Dr. Quester's terms, between "physical vigor ... and maturity, experience, and technological expertise." Further, this trend toward delaying age-related performance declines can only be expected to continue, especially in a nation whose general optimism leads its people--as the British are fond of saying about Americans--to believe that death is optional.

We must also consider the strategic consequences of having a "veteran force." The capacity to keep large numbers of experienced warfighters operational is historically unprecedented, and while its effects are unpredictable, I would wager they can only benefit a high-tech, net-centric military, seeking to push decisionmaking further down the operational chain. Recent military operations also suggest that other qualities that come with experience--maturity, composure, and cultural awareness, to name just a few--will be more important for a future US military, not less. The ability to keep veteran warfighters in their mental and physical peak for decades could give the US military the real ability to do more, with less, for longer, resulting in a force-multiplying effect that may be hard to neutralize or counter.

This would require, as Dr. Quester acknowledges, a radically new system of military promotion, organization, and even hierarchy--a system that would have to reconsider the up-or-out promotion tradition and entertain other scenarios, in which well-paid, elite, 50-year-old warfighters might reasonably be expected to lead squad- or platoon-sized units in urban operations or stability and support operations. Further, military age-management would also require a long-term strategy, something for which the military is not famous. Such is the nature of age-management that we would have to begin to apply biotechnologies to extend warfighters' physical and mental performance years, and probably decades, before we have historically begun to think of them as "aging." While we will be able to prevent aging, there is less chance of being able to reverse it once it begins. This means thinking ahead. However, in an era where the military must compete with other professionally attractive industries, it is worth considering the appeal of an organization that promises to use its significant resources to keep its personnel on the young side of old. Indeed, with appropriate investment in age-management, the adage "old soldiers never die" may have to be updated: "Old soldiers may die, but they don't age...."

Adam Russell, Ph.D.

Strategic Assessment Center, SAIC

McLean, Va.

The Author Replies:

Dr. Russell's comments are a very provocative example of what is called for by the inexorable pressures of demographic trends, a willingness to think "outside the box" about military manning. And they are another illustration of the spin-offs by which the same research that allows us to enhance the duration and quality of life can reinforce our ability to deploy armed forces.

George Quester

COPYRIGHT 2005 U.S. Army War College
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group