Could the Draft Return To the US?
As the United States continues to strike Iran roughly 10 days since ordered by President Donald Trump, questions about how long the war may last have been coupled with the prospect of a military draft that administration officials admit remains "on the table.”
Six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war that Trump has continually defended on the backdrop of what he and other senior officials have attributed to “an imminent threat” posed by Iran towards the U.S., Israel and other Middle East nations. The potential length of this conflict has drawn many assumptions, as Trump has floated a “4-5 weeks” duration while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been more clandestine in presenting any particular timeframe due to not giving away U.S. military strategies.
That, in turn, has led to questions of whether U.S. troops could ultimately be on the ground in Iran due to airstrikes historically not providing enough military might over time for sustainability.
On Sunday, Fox Business’ Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about the prospect of Americans not enlisted in the U.S. military being forced to fight overseas.
“Mothers out there are worried that we’re going to have a draft, that they’re going to see their sons and daughters get involved in this,” Bartiromo said. “What do you want to say about the president’s plans for troops on the ground? As we know, it’s been largely an air campaign up until now.”
“It has been, and it will continue to be,” Leavitt said. “President Trump wisely does not remove options off of the table. I know a lot of politicians like to do that quickly, but the president as commander in chief wants to continue to assess the success of this military operation."
The president cannot unilaterally bring back the draft through executive action.
Congress holds the constitutional power to “raise and support Armies,” and lawmakers would have to amend the Military Selective Service Act to authorize military conscription — which is unlikely to have any kind of majority support in a divided Congress during an unpopular war.
If a draft were held today, the Selective Service System would use a lottery system to determine the order in which men are conscripted. Officials would then likely draw numbers corresponding to birthdates.
Men who are 20 years old or turning 20 during the year in which the numbers are drawn would likely be the first ones selected, according to the agency. Beginning January 1 of the year an eligible male turns 21, he would drop into a second priority category, and men born the following year would then move into the first group.
Each succeeding birth year, draft eligible men drop into the next lower priority group until he has reached his 26th birthday, which remains the cut-off age for conscription.
The Selective Service says a modern-day draft “would be the most fair draft in history.”
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