THE United States will begin automatically registering draft-eligible men with the Selective Service System later this year, abandoning decades of self-registration.
The automatic registration was revealed by a new investigation from the US-based Intercept.
A government official told the outlet the shift had been ‘in the works for quite a while,’ driven by ‘sliding numbers’ of men registering voluntarily, the prospect of war with a near-peer power such as China, and what the official described as a Trump administration ‘obsession’ with creating ‘comprehensive federal databases’.
Men aged 18 to 25 have been required to register since 1980. Failure to do so is a felony, barring unregistered men from most federal jobs and student loan eligibility and carrying a maximum jail sentence of five years.
More than 100 million men have registered in the past 46 years, but the rate fell to 81 per cent in 2024, a three-point drop from the prior year.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last Wednesday that President Donald Trump ‘keeps his options on the table’ when asked about restoring the draft. Congressional approval would be required.
On 18 December 2025, Trump signed the National Defence Authorisation Act for 2026, mandating automatic registration.
The agency’s proposal was submitted to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on 30 March and will need to be coordinated with federal agencies including the Social Security Administration and Census Bureau.
The Selective Service said implementation would be completed by December 2026, resulting in ‘a streamlined registration process and corresponding workforce realignment’.
The government official claimed they did not believe the new process was geared toward ‘generating cannon fodder’ for a ground invasion of Iran or any of Trump’s other expanding military fronts.
‘This is about effective manpower generation, channelling, management, and surveillance,’ the official said.
The draft carries a bitter history in the United States.
A peacetime draft begun in 1948 was central to fighting the war in Vietnam and to the resistance it provoked. About one third of men who served were drafted. Roughly another third enlisted to avoid conscription.
A 1968 Department of Defense survey found 47 per cent of volunteers cited draft motivations as their primary reason for enlisting. Patriotism was cited by only six per cent.
Resistance was widespread. From 1964, students burned draft cards. By 1969, student body presidents of more than 250 universities had written to the White House refusing military induction.
An estimated 570,000 men were classified as draft offenders. Men of privilege found their own exits, graduate students received automatic deferments until 1968, undergraduates until 1973, and around 3.5 million obtained medical exemptions.
One study found 90 per cent of those pressing such claims succeeded even when in good health. Trump himself received five deferments, including for bone spurs diagnosed by a doctor who rented his office from Trump’s father.
Evasion nearly crippled the system. Draftees revolted within the armed forces. Colonel Robert Heinl, writing in the Armed Forces Journal in 1971, assessed the situation bluntly: ‘The morale, discipline and battle-worthiness of the US Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States.’
The then US President Richard Nixon signed legislation authorising the end of the draft that year. The last draftees reported on 30 June 1973 and the all-volunteer force was established the next day.
The Pentagon has since maintained a far more docile force in which, as it puts it, ‘every soldier, Marine, sailor, airman and guardian in the military today is a volunteer.’
The question of manpower takes on a different dimension when set against the state of the hardware.
According to a Trump administration source speaking to the US-based Drop Site News, Israel’s ballistic missile interceptor stockpile had dwindled to double digits on the eve of the ceasefire with Iran.
The shortage had forced Israeli military officials to become far more selective in confronting attacks. ‘They’re having to pick and choose what they shoot down,’ the official said.
An analysis by the Royal United Services Institute, drawing on data from the Payne Institute for Public Policy, calculated that by 24 March Israel had expended 122 of its 150 Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 missiles and 22 of its 48 Terminal High Altitude Area Defence THAAD interceptors.
Each Arrow costs two to three million dollars and takes months to produce. A single THAAD interceptor costs 12 million dollars. Multiple interceptors are often needed against a single incoming missile.
Iran is believed to be deliberately firing older models in earlier waves to drain Israeli defences, placing a down payment on the impact of future attacks with more advanced weapons once capacity is exhausted.
An April 6th JP Morgan research paper citing figures from the Jewish Institute for National Security stated that missile impact rates had risen from three per cent in the first two weeks of the war to 27 per cent.
Iran had also fired more than 500 ballistic missiles at Israel during the 12-Day War in June 2025, significantly depleting stocks even before the current conflict began.
On the day of the JP Morgan report, a ballistic missile struck a residential building in Haifa, killing four people. It did not detonate, those killed died from kinetic impact alone.
Israel’s theory of war assumed a quick victory that would rapidly diminish Iranian launches by destroying stockpiles and launch vehicles.
Despite substantial US assistance, Iranian launches have remained steady for weeks. Underground bases and mobile launchers have proved difficult to destroy from the air. The entry of Hezbollah and Yemen’s Ansar Allah has added further strain.
The shrinking Israeli stockpile has increased dependence on US Navy missile defence, though that capacity has been weakened by the departure of the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group.
The US Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier was disabled by what the US claimed was a massive ‘non-operational blaze’ in its laundry room on March 12th, and was forced to leave the Gulf for urgent repairs in Croatia. It was widely claimed on social media that it had been hit with a missile.
The US is believed to have fired 431 of its 2,500 Aegis missiles. It has also been forced to allocate large quantities of its own limited interceptors to defend Gulf Arab states, drawing down from stocks intended for deterrence against China.
The US reportedly used roughly 25 per cent of its THAAD inventory, between 100 and 150 missiles, defending Israel during the 12-Day War alone.
Production cannot keep pace. Lockheed Martin signed a deal to increase annual output from 96 to 400 interceptors, but the ramp-up is staggered over seven years.
The US procured only 12 THAAD interceptors in 2025 and was scheduled to receive 37 this year.
Israel has insisted it is not running low, even as more missiles strike targets are allowed to fall in what the military calls ‘open areas’.
Defence minister Israel Katz announced plans to scale up Arrow production while denying any shortage.
‘Israel has sufficient interceptors to protect its citizens, and the current move is intended to ensure continued operational freedom and the necessary endurance,’ he said.
The United States is now automatically enrolling its young men for potential conscription while its missile stockpiles and those of its closest ally are being drained faster than they can be replaced.
The official line on both fronts is that there is no cause for concern.
