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In this paper, we propose an assessment of military recruitment policies in the United Kingdom and the United States to illustrate their transformation with regard to the economic liberalization process and the status of these two countries as military powers. We address the issue of tools to recruit American and British armed forces through a public policy approach but also in terms of security studies to better understand the logic of changes over the last decade. Based on extensive documentary work, we illustrate the points of convergence and divergence between the Ministry of Defence  (UK) and the Department of Defense (US) in the management of military human resources entangled between economic logic of efficiency and transformation of the role of the state. If the use of incentives (subsidized salaries, retraining bonuses, education) and the use of private military companies best characterize the recruitment policy of the US and British armies, the latter display different outcomes in terms of quality and quantity of recruits.