Scraping

Eric Martin links to Fred Kaplan’s nice illustration of how reduced recruiting standards matter for military performance:

The pattern is clear: The higher the score on the aptitude test, the better the performance in the field. This is true for individual soldiers and for units. […]

Smarter also turns out to be cheaper. One study examined how many Patriot missiles various Army air-defense units had to fire in order to destroy 10 targets. Units with Category I personnel had to fire 20 missiles. Those with Category II had to fire 21 missiles. Category IIIA: 22. Category IIIB: 23. Category IV: 24 missiles. In other words, to perform the same task, Category IV units chewed up 20 percent more hardware than Category I units. For this particular task, since each Patriot missile costs about $2 million, they also chewed up $8 million more of the Army’s procurement budget.

As Eric notes, a bigger Army, under the current recruiting scheme, will inevitably require the admissions of less desirable applicants, reducing overall effectiveness.