Reply #7: let's back up and start over....

[mike_c]

My working hypothesis is that shrubco has seriously damaged the perception of military service-- it's inherent risks and the nobility of serving-- among people in the most desirable age groups for enlistment. If that hypothesis is true, then it follows that enlistments will decline until either something happens to alter that perception or another-- currently disinterested-- group of children reaches enlistment age. Absent some galvanizing event like another Pearl Harbor, I suggest that will take about ten years or so.

I'm actually quite good at making accurate predictions from working hypotheses-- when I have the data necessary to frame the hypotheses correctly. Not bragging, and I'm not able to offer any quantitative proof, so you'll just have to accept that assertion as my opinion as well. Testing hypotheses is what I do for a living, so at least I know the rules. I don't have any real data in this instance-- only my perceptions and opinions about current events-- so I make no claims about the accuracy of the resultant prediction. I offer it as a topic for discussion only.

However, if my hypothesis is correct, then the prediction follows naturally, don't you agree?