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People from hostile foreign nations like China, Iran, and Russia would be barred from buying property in New Hampshire under a revised proposal that is part of the just-passed budget bill.

“I’m very concerned, especially when you look at what’s happening to our agricultural land and agricultural land near military bases,” said Sen. Regina Birdsell (R-Hampstead).

The ban prohibits Granite State land purchases by buyers from the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

But it was China’s itch to buy American property that prompted Birdsell’s proposal.

She has been trying to protect New Hampshire from hostile ownership for the last two legislative sessions. Birdsell’s proposal for this year would have only restricted hostile actors from buying properties within 10 miles of military bases, but a last-minute agreement with New Hampshire realtors allowed the legislature to put a broader ban into the budget bill.

Birdsell said if the deal had come together sooner, it could have stopped the massive — and some say suspicious — purchase of property in Nashua by Nongfu Spring. 

Nongfu is China’s largest beverage company, and its owner, Zhong Shanshan, is China’s richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He also has ties to the Chinese Community Party.

Nongfu spent  $67 million on an industrial building close to one of Nashua’s water sources, despite online assessments valuing the property at approximately $15 million. The company will be buying water from Nashua’s Pennichuck Water Systems, like any other industrial customer, Pennichuck told NHJournal.

But the worry about foreign ownership is deeper than bottled water. Chinese-owned companies own or lease approximately 400,000 acres of agricultural land in the United States, a fraction of the 40 million acres owned by all foreign nationals or foreign-owned companies. It’s the anti-American politics and the local location that have lawmakers like Birdsell concerned.

Chinese properties in the United States are close to 19 American military facilities, such as Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Patrick Space Force Base in Florida, and Camp Pendleton in California. Birdsell, whose father was in military intelligence, sees the potential danger in allowing regimes like China, North Korea, and Russia to gain a foothold close to American defense facilities. 

“I’m very concerned about the New Boston Space Force Base, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and Pease,” she said.

Birdsell isn’t alone. Over the past few years, more than two-thirds of state governments around the country have enacted a ban on foreign people or entities from buying property. On the federal level, U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) and Sen. John Freeman (D-Penn.) are pushing  for more oversight on foreign countries buying American farmland. 

“We should take back all of their farmland. This is really a national security issue, and it is a food security issue,” Fetterman said in 2023.

Fears about foreign ownership of land in sensitive U.S. locations have been heightened by news from Russia and Iran. In Russia, Ukrainian forces were able to get trucks loaded with drones near military locations and unleash a recent devastating attack on the Russian air force. In Iran, Israeli operatives built an entire drone factory inside the country and used those drones to hit the Islamic Republic’s air defense and missile launching capabilities.

“I would say it’s a wake-up moment now,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin told a security roundtable after the successful Ukraine attack. “We’ve always known that hardening our bases is something that we need to do, and so we have that actually in our budgets, to be able to get more resilient basing.”

There are potential security threats in New Hampshire. Space Force officials have testified in Concord about drones flying onto the base and other cybersecurity threats the New Boston facility is tackling.

More troubling is the 2022 arrest of a Russian man living in Merrimack who was allegedly part of a smuggling operation. According to law enforcement, Alexey Brayman was part of a spy ring that used his New Hampshire home to funnel things like ammunition for sniper rifles and electronics that could be used in nuclear or hypersonic weapons to locations around the world.

The fate of the budget is uncertain with Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s veto threat hanging over it. Birdsell’s legislation isn’t controversial, but everything is up in the air until the budget gets signed.

“I’m just going day to day right now,” Birdsell said.

As the nation celebrates its independence — and the Revolutionary War heroes who wrested it from the British crown — new data show fewer young Americans are willing, or even able, to serve in the U.S. military today.

That includes here in New Hampshire, where the percentage of young people aged 17-24 joining the military lags behind the national average. However, the quality of military recruits from the Granite State is the best in the nation, according to a 2019 report. That is a significant finding given the declining quality of the recruiting pool.

In congressional testimony, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said just 23 percent of Americans in the 17-24 age group meet the minimum qualifications to serve due to obesity, drug use, or criminal record. Those would-be recruits need a waiver to join.

Not that young people, obese or otherwise, are banging down the doors to get in. NBC News reports an internal Defense Department survey found just 9 percent of eligible potential recruits have any interest in doing so—the lowest number since 2007.

“It’s fair to say all branches of the military service, including active, National Guard, and Reserve are struggling to recruit,” said Lt. Col. Greg Heilshorn, Director of Public Affairs for the New Hampshire National Guard.

And while New Hampshire’s number may be below the national average, it still has the distinction of sending the most recruits to the military than any other New England state.

Unsurprisingly, states with large populations like California and Texas provide the most military recruits. However, the states sending the highest percentage of their enlistment-age population to the military are from the south: South Carolina, Florida, Hawaii, Georgia, and Alabama top the list.

The New England region ranks at the bottom.

Heilshorn said the high quality of New Hampshire’s recruits is due in part to having so few of them. That gives recruiters time to work with the recruits and prepare them for their accession into basic training.

“We can have a greater training impact on our new recruits – a more hands-on approach preparing them for basic training and their advanced individual training, collectively known as initial entry training,” Heilshorn said. “In the New Hampshire Army National Guard, we have a Recruit Training Company, which runs our Recruit Sustainment Program. As a result, recruits are better equipped physically and mentally to excel during their initial entry training. The N.H. Army Guard has consistently ranked among the top states among quality enlistments.”

Dave Medlock, 45, of Exeter, joined the military in 1999 when he was in his early 20s. He had dreams of attending officer training school but eventually ended up spending eight years in an Army Medical Evacuation Unit, serving tours of duty in Bosnia and Iraq. He said his time in the military has had a lasting, positive impact on his life.

“Overall, it was fantastic. The best part of it was the people,” Medlock said. “I have so much respect and admiration for the people that I served with, just an amazing group of people. Serving in a Medevac unit, the goal of saving lives drew the best people imaginable.”

Medlock had family members who served in the military, which gave him a sense of duty and responsibility. His grandfather served as a colonel in World War II. A father himself now, Medlock said the younger generation does not have the same sense of patriotism.

“The youth of today have a very different attitude on what constitutes freedom and responsibilities,” Medlock said. “They don’t even think of it as a pathway.”

The culture at large portrays military service negatively, and love for America among Americans continues to decline. According to the latest Gallup Poll survey, a record low 38 percent of Americans say they are “extremely proud” to be American.

Medlock said his military service gave him the training and education to succeed as a civilian. He works as an operations director for a private plane company managing 200 pilots and close to 50 aircraft.

“The reason I have this job now, at which I make a very good living, is because of my military experience,” Medlock said.

Heilshorn said he thinks there are many factors behind the overall decline in military service.

“Our current struggles to meet annual recruiting goals stem from a number of factors including a shrinking pool of eligible young men and women, higher standards to meet for enlistment, and tight job market,” Heilshorn said.

Heilshorn said there is an ebb and flow to military enlistment and, more importantly, retention. Military branches want to keep the personnel they have trained for as long as possible. For the New Hampshire National Guard, Heilshorn said the COVID-19 pandemic helped keep soldiers.

“Generally, our total number serving has hovered around 2,700 citizen-soldiers and airmen. We’ve dipped under 2,600 and been as high as 2,800. Since the pandemic, retention has been especially strong. We believe it’s in large part due to the fact so many of our guardsmen were activated for extended tours in support of the state’s pandemic relief efforts. There’s nothing more incentivizing than for a soldier or airman to be on mission, doing their job, whether that’s overseas or right in their own community.”