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The Brief
- The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has fully implemented automatic Selective Service registration, utilizing federal records to register all eligible citizens.
- While the lottery-based draft infrastructure is fully operational due to the Iran conflict, it remains a "measure of last resort" with specific exemptions for clergy and some others.
- Despite the heightened state of readiness, not everyone is eligible to be called into active duty.
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A Tradition of Citizen-Soldiers
A career soldier sees the military not just as a job, but as a brotherhood bound by shared sacrifice. From this perspective, the history of the American draft is a story of how a nation asked its citizens to share in its defense a burden that, for the last 50 years, has been carried by a select few. Looking at a nation like Israel, where service is a universal rite of passage, offers a powerful contrast and, for many of us in uniform, a glimpse of what a truly shared commitment to defense looks like.
A Tradition of Citizen-Soldiers
The concept of the citizen-soldier is woven into the fabric of American history. Before we were a nation, colonial militias required able-bodied men to defend their communities. This idea that the privilege of liberty comes with the obligation to defend it was foundational. However, a large-scale, national draft didn't arrive until the Civil War. The Enrollment Act of 1863 was controversial and deeply flawed, allowing the wealthy to pay for substitutes, which led to bitter resentment and riots. For a soldier, the idea that your life is worth less than another man's money is the ultimate betrayal of the unit's cohesion.
The modern draft, the system we veterans are more familiar with through the stories of our fathers and uncles, was born in 1917. The Selective Service Act of 1917 was designed to be fairer, eliminating substitutes and basing calls on a lottery. It was a massive undertaking that registered 24 million men. But it was the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 that truly shaped the 20th-century military. This was the nation's first peacetime draft a recognition by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the growing storms in Europe would eventually require American involvement. It created the Selective Service System we know today.
For a soldier, this act is profoundly significant. It meant that when we were thrust into World War II, we had a pipeline of reinforcements. The draft didn't just raise an army; it forged a generation. My own drill sergeants, the men who forged me, were often products of that era or the Korean War. They spoke of the draft not with resentment, but as a great equalizer a process that brought together farm boys, factory workers, and future CEOs to serve a common cause. The system was refined during the Cold War, with the 1948 Act making it a permanent fixture . Men like Elvis Presley and Willie Mays were drafted, proving that no status or career exempted you from this call .
The Unraveling and the Volunteer Force
The 1960s and the Vietnam War changed everything. The draft became a flashpoint. The deferment system, which offered leeway to college students and those in certain occupations, created a deep perception of injustice that the sons of the powerful could avoid the jungles of Southeast Asia, while the poor and working-class could not . This wasn't just a political problem; it was a cancer on the morale of the units serving there. When you're in a foxhole, you don't care about a man's background, but you feel it deeply if you believe the system is rigged.
By 1973, President Richard Nixon ended the draft, and the U.S. moved to the All-Volunteer Force. As a career soldier, I have known only this all-volunteer military. It is a force of professionals, unmatched in skill and dedication. But it has also created a divide. The military has become a "military family" in the truest sense, but it is a family that is increasingly isolated from the wider population it serves. The burden of 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan has fallen on less than one percent of the nation. The sense of shared sacrifice that my drill sergeants described from WWII was gone.
Registration with the Selective Service never fully went away it was suspended in 1975 but reinstated by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Today, virtually all male noncitizens living in the U.S., ages 18 through 25, including undocumented immigrants, are required to register. It’s a system in name only, a hedge against an unknown future. When I look at my troops, I know that if the balloon goes up, they and their fellow 1%ers will bear the brunt until—and if the machinery of a national draft can spin back up.
The Israeli Model: A Shared National Burden
This brings me to Israel. When I look at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), I see a reflection of what America once aspired to be. In Israel, the draft isn't a historical footnote; it is the bedrock of society. Since its founding in 1948, the state has relied on a model of national service. For most Jewish Israeli citizens, service is mandatory. Men serve for about 32 months, recently extended to 36 due to operational needs, and women serve for 24 months. This is followed by reserve duty for years afterward.
From a professional standpoint, the benefits are staggering. The IDF is truly a "people's army." It is a melting pot where a high-tech entrepreneur serves alongside a kibbutznik and a new immigrant. The military receives the vast majority of the nation's youth at their peak physical and mental condition. It instills discipline, leadership, and a fierce sense of national purpose in virtually an entire generation. This creates a bond of shared experience that is unbreakable.
As IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir recently told troops, expanding enlistment particularly from the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community is not just an "operational necessity," but a "moral obligation toward all those who serve, in order to distribute the burden equally".
This moral obligation is the crux of the matter. The system in Israel is currently under immense strain because of deep divisions over this principle of equality. For decades, ultra-Orthodox men received exemptions from the draft to study religious texts . While about 88% of non-Haredi Jewish men serve, the enlistment rate for Haredi men was as low as 1.7%. This has created a deep societal rift. In the midst of ongoing conflicts, with the IDF facing a shortage of 12,000 recruits and reserves being worn thin, this inequality is a festering wound .
The government is struggling to pass a new draft law, trying to balance the need for soldiers with political realities. As someone who has worn the uniform, seeing a government debate not if they can protect their country, but *who* has to do the protecting, is frustrating. The IDF has stated that by mid-2026, they will have the capacity to absorb all Haredi recruits, yet the targets in proposed laws remain low. The current debate in Israel isn't about whether the draft exists, but about how to make it live up to its promise of equal service. It is a high-stakes argument over the very definition of citizenship.
Conclusion
For me, a career soldier, the choice to serve has always been personal. But the obligation to serve is national. The history of the U.S. draft is one of a nation grappling with that obligation, ultimately deciding in 1973 to leave the defense of the country to those who "volunteer." We do it well, but the connection between the citizen and the soldier has frayed.
Looking at Israel, I see a society where that connection is reinforced every single day. Their system has its own profound challenges as seen in the contentious debates over Haredi enlistment but the expectation of service is a given. It is a reminder that a nation's military is strongest not just when it has the best technology or training, but when it truly represents the people it defends. I am proud to have served, but I sometimes wonder if the pride would feel even heavier and more widely shared if the burden was, too.
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