Strategic Challenges Found in US Demography

This piece by Tom Mahnken is looking at demography as a strategic indicator when looking at the fortunes of nations in the future, but the piece concludes by looking at how demography may impact the United States.

Demographic trends could have three major implications for the U.S. national security in coming decades.

First, absent some major unforeseen shock, America’s demographic position will be a source of long-term strategic strength. To exploit that strength, the United States will need to do more to craft public policy that encourages legal immigration and to develop public policy approaches to ensure that immigrants are assimilated into American society.

Second, the fact that the United States’ traditional allies are all facing aging populations is likely to make it even harder for the United States to garner material support for its efforts. The limits to European military capability are painfully obvious in Afghanistan, and Japan’s out-of-area military efforts have stalled. In retrospect, we might look back on Afghanistan as representing the high-water mark of those allies’ willingness and ability to project power beyond their borders. Even in defense of their own territory, advanced states might face real limits. The decline in South Korea’s birthrate has already shaped the imperative to transform the Republic of Korea Armed Forces into a smaller but more professional military.

Third, although the burden of paying for an aging population will be less for the United States than for many of its allies, the cost will nonetheless be substantial. The United States possesses the finest military in the world, but also one of the most expensive. As the congressionally mandated Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel recently reported, pay and benefits (including health care and retirement) for each member of the U.S. armed forces currently cost more than $400,000. Unless something is done to reduce manpower costs, defense spending will soon come into direct conflict with social spending—and that is a conflict the military might not be able to win.

What military contributions allies may provide to wars in the future and the cost of manpower in the military today and the future are two topics that are common in strategic analysis. Immigration on the other hand is a serious issue that rarely gets discussed in a strategic context.