U.S. Citizenship as an Army Recruiting Incentive

The U.S. is now in the business of trading citizenship for war-making.

The U.S. Army has announced that it will accept immigrants with temporary visas for the first time since the Vietnam War in an effort to fill critical capacity gaps. Immigrants will be offered fast-track U.S. citizenship in return for service.

"The American army finds itself in a lot of different countries where cultural awareness is critical," said Lt-Gen Benjamin C Freakley, the top recruitment officer for the army.

"There will be some very talented folks in this group," he told the New York Times.

"The army will gain in its strength in human capital, and the immigrants will gain their citizenship and get on a ramp to the American dream."

The fragmentation of the U.S. Army into many countries is a sign of what is commonly called overextension. Overextension simply means that the military is failing at what it is trying to do. If it were not failing, there would be no talk of overextension. Overextension is a euphemism.

That the Army "finds itself" fragmented is a sign of poor management by military leaders and insufficient oversight by citizens. The Army does not "find itself" in places, transported there mysteriously. If it is true that soldiers feel this way, then the inadequate rationale for war-making that has infected U.S. culture since the end of World War II continues. How is it that the Army cannot understand how it has gotten where it is? How is it that an Army Lieutenant-General suddenly discovers that the Army has become fragmented, as if he is Rip Van Winkle awaking beneath a tree after a long slumber?

Offering United States citizenship to immigrants in exchange for their services waging war is a reproachable strategy, indicative of a broken volunteer military and an American culture that no longer understands or agrees upon the reasons it takes violence across the globe.

Offering the "American dream" as an incentive at a time when hundreds of thousands of Americans are losing jobs, homes, and retirements shows just how desperate the Army has become. The lack of any public commentary or awareness of this new Army program shows just how ambivalent the U.S. citizenry—we—have become about managing ourselves and our country.