A good way to lower entry requirements is to be at war. There’s no need to do that if you’re at peace and (mostly) hit your recruitment targets. Keep in mind that people can get transferred from unit to unit depending on armed forces’ needs, not necessarily your needs.

what you need are lots of people to “man” data/operations centers and just a few ready to deploy for actual combat.

Maybe in smaller countries and smaller wars. You still need a shitload of people to hold defensive positions for your pilots and other “remote” staff to have any effect. Would be true for insurgencies probably.

nuclear ICBMs (not that it’s a good thing we have those)

Debatable. I’d rather have some rn, it’s a good deterrent.