Can the army survive migration?

There is an often-asked question at the moment: why won’t the young fight for Britain?

As with so much political commentary, it asks the wrong question: the question is, why won’t the young fight for the west? 

There is a mounting recruitment and retention crisis across much of the Western world—particularly in the Five Eyes countries of Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Britain and Australia.

Last year, Canada’s auditor general warned the armed forces were in a death spiral and whilst a big increase in pay, has seen the armed forces achieve their best year for recruitment in three decades, they are still thousands of troops short of their own targets. New Zealand has seen severe attrition among experienced troops in recent years, with some specialist roles losing a substantial share of their workforce in a short period.

The United States still fields the world’s most powerful military, but it has struggled to meet recruitment targets: overall force size is historically low relative to recent decades, and whilst recruitment numbers exceeded target in 2025 and 2024, this isn’t through greater recruitment of young people: the enlistment age has recently been raised to 42. The number of active-duty military personnel has fallen 37% since 1980, and the US has not had forces this small since entering the Second World War. 

A similar recruitment crisis in the British military has prompted many to suggest recourse to the universal policy that every public service in crisis turns to: immigration. 

There are, of course, already foreign recruits in our military. I have already written of the Gurkhas and the Imperial hangover of the martial races, but there are also recruits from across the Commonwealth, who are allowed to apply to serve in the all three forces in limited numbers — 1,350 across all services.

However, the realities are this: there is still a recruitment crisis in the Armed forces, and there is enough interest from potential Commonwealth recruits to fill the gap. Indeed, in 2024 there was a surge in application so large that new Commonwealth applications are currently paused whilst current ones are processed.

A leaked memo has already suggested that we may be heading down the path of greater reliance on foreign recruits already followed in education and healthcare: under present rules, only 15 per cent of the trained strength of the regular army can be from the Commonwealth. A memo accidentally sent to The Times suggested military chiefs wanted to fiddle the figure by applying the cap to the target figure for the Army, rather than the trained strength. In fact, one of our Five Eyes allies, Australia, has gone so far as to loosen recruitment rules to allow certain foreign nationals to join directly. Unsurprisingly, recruitment hit a 15-year high the following year.

What might the effect of a significant increase in foreign-born recruits to our Armed Forces be? Thanks to a confidential Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School report leaked to Cosmin Dzsurdzsa of Juno News, we now have some insight.

It describes a marked deterioration in basic officer training following a sharp increase in the enrolment of permanent residents. In one French-language platoon, where more than 80 per cent of recruits were non-citizens, instructors reported serious communication barriers, persistent cultural friction, and a breakdown in unit cohesion. Tensions reportedly emerged along national lines, including disputes between Cameroonian and Ivorian candidates, while some recruits displayed open hostility towards female personnel.

Outcomes were to be as expected in the Quebec-based platoon: fewer than half of recruits completed the course.

The report is particularly blunt about the cultural challenges encountered. Allegations of discrimination surfaced in multiple directions—against staff and between recruits across ethnic groupings. Many recruits, it notes, had little prior experience working or living alongside women in a professional setting. “For many candidates,” the report explains, “it is the first time they have lived with members of a different sex, and for some it is also the first time they have been expected to treat women as their peers.” Instructors faced persistent issues around discipline, authority, and basic interpersonal conduct.

Authored by Commandant Lieutenant Colonel M. R. Kieley and titled Initial Observations — Impact of Changes to Canadian Armed Forces Recruiting Policies at Basic Training Over 2025, the report suggests that efforts to rapidly rebuild numbers by loosening recruitment standards have come at a clear cost: declining training outcomes, weakened cohesion, and insurmountable internal tensions.

The jump from 15 per cent of cap bade strength to the 80 per cent of foreign recruits in the Quebec study is obviously significant, but these problems exist on a sliding scale: the greater the number of foreign recruits, the greater the problems. Maintaining 15 per cent of Commonwealth troops is sustainable: not only is it a historic norm, but the absolute numbers are low enough to allow for proper integration and to uphold standards.

This last point in particular matters, because whilst the number of applications is high, success rates are low: since 2010, the UK Armed Forces have received more than 157,000 applications from Commonwealth citizens. Of these, over 91,000 across all three services were either rejected or withdrawn, typically due to unmet eligibility requirements, medical or fitness standards, or the failure to secure clearance.

The lure of human quantitative easing has been used across our public services as a form of public sector wage suppression. In each one, it has reduced costs and negatively affected outcomes. The idea of greatly increasing the numbers of Commonwealth recruits — or, indeed, arming Afghan refugees, despite the number of Taliban members that entered the country through the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme — would be disastrous for Britain’s combat readiness. 

But then, using immigration to juice numbers whilst sacrificing quality and leaving the problem for someone else to deal with would be entirely in keeping with Westminster’s worst habit.