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Law authorizes the number of military members in every Service and component – this number is known as End Strength. Recruiting involves attracting and accessing both prior Service members and those who are new to the military, referred to as non-prior service.

In the 1990s the Army dropped from 780,000 to 480,000 active duty end strength. Many in Congress wanted to increase the Army's end strength by as much as 40,000 troops in order to ease the strain of deployments. But the Army's top general, Peter Schoomaker, adamantly opposed adding end strength. Army planners believe the service can gain 10,000 spaces from military to civilian conversions. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has authorized the Army to temporarily exceed end strength limits by 30,000. The Military Officers Association of America questioned the numbers, stating that the Army already is some 17,000 over end strength, which would bring the actual increase to 13,000.

The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved the fiscal year 2005 Defense Appropriations bill on June 22, 2004 which provided $605 million to support an Army end strength increase of 20,000 soldiers, leaving the overall Department of Defense end strength of 2,263,900. The provision, passed as an amendment to the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill, would increase the Army's strength to 502,400. Voting against it were Republicans Gordon Smith of Oregon, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Larry Craig of Idaho and Craig Thomas of Wyoming. Not voting were Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Robert Bennett, R-Utah and James Inhofe, R-Okla. The House version of the bill, approved in May 2004, would have added 30,000 Soldiers and 9,000 Marines over three years. Under the the fiscal 2005 Defense Appropriations Act which President Bush signed into law 05 August 2004, Air Force Reserve Command’s end-strength ceiling was raised to 76,100 reservists in the Selected Reserve in 2005.

The Army's Average Strength during FY2004 was 210,252 higher than authorized end strength, reflecting Guard and Reserve mobilizations authorized in the supplemental. [ Operation and Maintenance Overview, page 178]

In October 2004 the FY2005 Defense Authorization Act increased Army end strength by 20,000 and Marine Corps end strength by 3,000 for FY2005, with additional increases authorized in future years. The Army recognizes the challenges the continuing deployments have created. It is one of the driving forces behind the Army growing by close to 30,000 Soldiers over two years.

The authorization that the Army has to raise the end strength to 512,400 through fiscal 2009 will allow the service to continue its transformation plan. That plan is to build to 43 active brigade combat teams and 44 reserve component brigade combat teams– 34 National Guard, 10 Army Reserve – and the support units needed to maintain them. The requirement is to be able to deploy and sustain 20 brigade combat teams. To do that on a sustainable model, the Army believes that it must be able to go to one deployment in a three-year term for active forces and a deployment in a five- or six-year term for your reserve forces.

The 512,400 active duty figure is based on continued access to National Guard and Army Reserve troops. Key to that is having units trained sufficiently prior to deployment. If that's not true and the National Guard and reserves are not available under those assumptions, then the Army will have to grow the active force further.

The increase in early 2005 in maximum recruiting age from 35 to 39 applied only to National Guard and Reserve recruits, not to active duty troops.

The Air Force exceeded the mandated active duty end strength of 359,000 during 2002 and 2003 due to the Global War on Terrorism. The Air Force planned to reduce the size of the active forces by more than 20,000 people by the end of fiscal year 2005. The Navy planned a force reduction of almost 8,000 through 2006.

As of 2003 Air Force manning numbers were beyond the authorized end-strength of 359,300 airmen on active duty. The Force Shaping Program has scheduled active-duty numbers to drop by 3,900 officers and 12,700 enlisted airmen by 15 September 2004. Palace Chase is a program for airmen to transition off of active duty by trading their active-duty service commitments for Air Force Reserve service commitments. The Department of Defense is turning back the clock, raising Air Force Reserve Command’s end-strength ceiling to the fiscal year 1996 level. The change is the result of the FY 2005 Defense Appropriations Act. President Bush signed the bill into law 05 August 2004. Under the defense bill, AFRC may have up to 76,100 reservists in the Selected Reserve in FY 2005,

The Army’s recruiting goal that began in October 2004 was 80,000 by 2005 with the hopes of recruiting at least 8,000 prior-service troops. The new Defense Department program intended to rebalance the size of the military is called “Operation Blue to Green.” Under this plan, the Army will reach out to Sailors and Airmen who are leaving under the force shaping initiative but who still want to serve their country.

The “third wave” is a plan by the Department of the Army to outsource 214,000 civilian and military jobs to the private sector. For the first time, almost all non-combat positions are included in the outsourcing plans. The genesis of the third wave was a 4 Oct 2002 memo from Secretary White to the Non-Core Competencies Working Group (NCCWP).