Senate seeks to slash military recruiting goals to avoid further lowering standards to compensate declining enlistment numbers: 'Multi-year effort to reverse the downward trend'

The Senate Armed Services Committee released a draft policy Tuesday proposing cuts to military recruiting goals for fiscal year 2024 to avoid further lowering standards to compensate for declining enlistment numbers.

The committee's draft legislation found that the Department of Defense's requested end strengths were "unattainable" given the current recruiting challenges.

For the Navy, the DOD requested a goal of 347,000 active-duty personnel, but the committee revised it to 342,000. Similarly, instead of 324,700 Air Force troops, the committee suggested 320,000.

While the Army has also struggled to meet recruiting targets, the committee supported the DOD's requested 452,000 active-duty troops, the same goal as for fiscal year 2023. Additionally, the committee agreed with the DOD's requested end strengths for the Marine Corps, with 172,300 troops, and Space Force, with 9,400.

"This provision would authorize active component end strengths in line with the Department of Defense's requests for the Army, Marine Corps, and Space Force. For the Air Force and the Navy, this provision would authorize slightly lower end strengths than those requested by the Department. The committee has received regular updates from the Department and the military services on end strength projections for fiscal year 2023, as well as the current state of recruiting in all of the military services, and believes the Department's end strength requests for the Air Force and the Navy are unattainable for fiscal year 2024 based on current trends," the draft report stated.

The committee added that it "believes that it will be a multi-year effort to reverse the downward trend in military recruiting and does not want to encourage the military services to lower recruiting standards in order to attain short-term goals."

According to the report, the DOD's "unreachable" recruiting goals could "encourag[e] quantity over quality."

"Legislating unreachable end strength numbers would set the military services up for failure by guaranteeing continued recruiting shortfalls, putting undue strain on recruiting forces, and ultimately compromising readiness," it added.

To meet 2023 targets, the Navy and the Air Force dropped recruiting standards earlier this year.

In February, the Navy enforced a "one-time reset" that removed failed physical fitness tests from prospective sailors' records to allow second chances. The policy aimed to improve retention and attrition to reach end-strength goals.

In April, the Air Force eased body fat requirements for new recruits to encourage more applications. Male prospective troops can now have up to 26% body fat compared to the previous 20% requirement, while females can have 36%, up from 28%.

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