What happens when the country with the world’s most sophisticated navy no longer possesses the manpower necessary to maintain its status as a global hegemon?

It’s a question the U.S. is having to grapple with as its maritime force experiences the worst personnel crisis in recent history.

In April, The Military Times reported that the Navy is expected to miss its recruiting targets for fiscal year 2023 by roughly 6,000 sailors.

The news came months after it was revealed the branch failed to meet its targets for new officers and reservists for fiscal year 2022, despite meeting its active-duty enlisted recruitment goal.

To combat its ongoing personnel crisis, the Navy also increased its maximum enlistment age from 39 to 41 in November “in an effort to allow more civilians to join its ranks.” Nearly a month later, it lowered its entrance test standards.

And just last month, the branch announced further plans to extend the work week for its recruiters from five days to six to address existing shortfalls but backed away from the policy after facing backlash from sailors.

The situation has gotten so bad that Navy leadership recently turned to Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley — an active-duty drag queen who goes by the stage name Harpy Daniels and identifies as non-binary — to be a “Navy Digital Ambassador.”

The program — which ran from October 2022 to March 2023 — was reportedly “designed to explore the digital environment to reach a wide range of potential candidates” for military recruitment.

Potential Causes

While there’s no singular factor responsible for the Navy’s recruitment crisis, Navy veterans and policy specialists have varying ideas on why America’s maritime force is struggling to bring new sailors into service.

For Brent Sadler, a Navy veteran and senior research fellow for The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense,

One of the most glaring causes advancing the Navy’s personnel problems is the Biden Defense Department’s embrace of DEI ideology, which he says is alienating potential recruits from demographics that lean more conservative.

DEI, which stands for “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” is a divisive and poisonous ideology dismissive of merit in order to discriminate based on characteristics such as skin color and sexual orientation.

“When you start alienating where you draw the vast majority of your recruits, you’re going to take a hit,” Sadler told The Federalist.

“The embrace of DEI is “a conscious decision by this administration,” he said. “It’s going to take them a while to figure out how to actually mitigate that and if they’re going to try to broaden and diversify their recruiting. They haven’t been effective at it yet.”

In addition to its drag queen “ambassador” stint, Navy leadership also issued a memo in May 2021 outlining an action plan to promote DEI throughout the branch. The document instructed the Navy’s assistant secretary and chief diversity officer to “lead and oversee all DEI efforts across the Department to synchronize key policies and initiatives … and to develop a strategy to advance DEI across the enterprise.”

Last year, the branch also published an instructional video advising service members to create a “safe space” by using “correct” pronouns. . . .  (read more on The Federalist)