You're not wrong, but not right enough. Iraq was an obvious lie, but China is an actual threat. They're quickly teching up to meet the western world and have 3x as many bodies to throw into a conflict if everything else fails.
Besides the recruiting efforts, there's less cutesy factors at play too, like the attack on abortion rights seemingly out of nowhere. Birth rates are down, which does not lend itself well to maintenance and replacement of a functional army should a conflict arise in the next three decades. Undermining abortion establishes a direct-to-military pipeline for young adults to escape desperate situations (yes, it's as ugly as it sounds-- such is war).
Nobody's going to do anything about ongoing job displacement so we'll have a lot of desperate men of fighting age with nothing else to do. We're ramping up production capability again, but those jobs will go to robots and women after we hand the men rifles and ship them out to some atoll in the middle of the Pacific. The rest of us will eventually be conscripted out of necessity since this won't be some pointless skirmish in the Falklands, which will solve the retirement and housing crises.
Gen Z will dodge the draft, embrace the Communist invaders they romanticize and experience life as subjugated citizens under occupation. Ironically, they don't really have anything to fight for. They've been conditioned to resent their ancestors, each other, and the idea of meritocracy. Let your parents die in war/childbirth and you'll net an early inheritance.
Start learning Mandarin. It'll either help you get a job on a red team/intelligence unit or help you assimilate once it's all over.