Beyond a Few Good Men: Selective Service for Women to Fortify National Security
Today, the United States military has about 1.3 million active duty members serving across its ranks and service branches, which amounts to less than one half of one percent of the US population. Importantly, the US fighting force is comprised of all volunteers. Now, for a moment, imagine a country that boasts a military of well over 2 million active duty members and a population of approximately 1.4 billion. As you have already guessed, this country is in fact the People’s Republic of China.
While the PRC’s numerical advantage over the United States may not seem particularly concerning, consider the following: in total, China can harness the military manpower of 386 million personnel (including active and reserve forces). According to the US Census, the total US population is just over 332 million. The potential military power of China exceeds the entire population of the United States. Yet, we only require our young men (between the age of 18 and 25 years old) to register for selective service. Under the current policy, we leave thousands of young women unregistered for military service should our nation, finding itself unable to stave off an adversary with our current volunteer force, call upon its young people to defend itself. In an era of great power competition and a growing focus on preparation for future fights against near peers, are we overlooking an opportunity to call upon a broader base of talent?
Selective Service: Neither a Draft Nor Conscription
Since 1973, the draft officially ended and the United States has been an all-volunteer force. In that same year, American troops left Vietnam as the sentiment against military service continued to soar at home. Not since 1973, in the wake of a deeply unpopular war that lost nearly all public support, has it been so difficult to recruit our young people into the military. That is, until 2022. We must be vigilant of a growing lack of interest in military service among young people and the potential ramifications on military strength.
The presence of an all-volunteer force (AVF) is a good thing, but it is not guaranteed. History indicates that the United States prefers to avoid conscription, but has reluctantly resorted to it for 35 years of its 245-year history. Not only does society strongly prefer an all-volunteer force, but the capabilities and capacity of an AVF have proven both resilient and robust. However, as both eligibility and recruitment numbers slump for military service, the future viability of an AVF is less than certain. The population of young people eligible to serve in the military had steadily shrunk for years with most disqualifications emanating from obesity, drug use or criminal records. According to Army Chief of Staff James McConville, only 23 percent (down from 29 percent in recent years) of Americans between 17-24 years old are qualified to serve without a waiver in the Army, the largest branch of the United States military. Perhaps more troubling, according to an internal Department of Defense survey, only 9 percent of young Americans eligible for military service express intent or interest to serve, marking the lowest level of interest since 2007. In light of these unencouraging statistics, selective service and how it is structured in the future – and who it includes – is critically important to national security.
Today, the United States Selective Service System manages the administrative process by which young men register for selective service — not a draft per se. Rather, a draft is the obligatory enrollment of individuals into the armed forces, an event that United States has not experienced in over half a decade. Selective service is essentially a roster of eligible individuals that would be necessary to execute a draft if the Department of Defense determines it is unable to recruit and retain the appropriate fighting force to meet military objectives. Even at this point, to conduct a draft, Congress must amend the Military Selective Service Act that would then enable the President to induct personnel into the armed forces.
All of these steps must transpire before the piece of the draft that is better known, or rather dreaded, by the general public can occur – the lottery. The lottery process injects random selection into a predetermined priority scheme whereby those who turn 20 years old during the year of the draft face the lottery first. Additional lotteries are then conducted, if necessary, for those 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 19, and finally 18.5 years old. Our country’s last draft cast a long, ignoble shadow over the consequences of conscription. Undoubtedly, to never see another draft would be ideal, but to fail to prepare for moments of crisis that demand them is unwise. And leave half of our population uninvolved enfeebles our national security.
Selective Service Provides Insurance to Quickly Respond as a Nation
A situation that demands a draft will be dire and the nation will be mounting tremendous efforts across industries to meet formidable challenges. In a fight of this magnitude, one that will likely be existential, requiring both young men and women to register for selective service will accelerate the United States’ capability to meet national — not just military — objectives. The need for people to fulfill civil roles and responsibilities surges in tandem with the need for military personnel and selective service enables a faster response to mobilize young people to their posts. Critics of the inclusion of women in selective service often conjure images of young women immediately rushing off to the front lines of armed violent hand-to-hand combat. While gender restrictions on combat service were already removed in 2015, this myopic focus on one potential type of military service overlooks a vast spectrum of jobs and duties women could fulfill to bolster a whole-of-nation effort. And we need not look further than our country’s experience in the last total war — World War II, during which 10 million men were drafted— to see how many types of work far away from the frontlines are instrumental.
Service Can Take Many Forms
In 1940, under the Selective Service and Training Act, the Civilian Public Service Program was established with the support of President Roosevelt to “provide work of national importance.” As America rapidly increased its commitment of troops following Pearl Harbor, thousands of conscientious objectors (CO) refused to serve in the military based on religious beliefs. The majority of COs belonged to the Quaker, Brethren, and Mennonite faiths; throughout the course of six years, they contributed 2.2 million man-days of service, performed over 120 different types of work, and dedicated an estimated $4 million worth of government labor, both state and federal.
These men worked in forest fire prevention, trail building, and pest control. They filled in at understaffed schools and psychiatric facilities. In several states, COs worked to keep domestic industries aloft that had been hollowed out by the draft. In Wisconsin, for example, 550 men worked in the dairy industry. COs worked closely with the then Bureau of Reclamation and oversaw the construction of dams, bridges, and infrastructure while the Farm Security Administration heavily involved COs in ambitious irrigation projects. Some even trained as smokejumpers to fight remote wilderness fires. Notably, the majority of smokejumpers worked for no pay at all. While war waged across the globe, COs helped keep the lights on and food on the tables at home. The example of World War II COs exemplifies how, during a national crisis, there is more than enough work to go around and the services that our young men and women can provide are not only military in nature.
Be Ready to Mobilize All Talent, Regardless of Gender
A recent study by the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service had two key findings: 1) the Selective Service is our most efficient existing method to augment available personnel in the event of a national crisis and 2) women should be included in the mandatory registration process. This is not a gender or sex issue. It is, quite simply and seriously, a national security issue. When young men turn 18 (or often before as they apply for a driver’s license), they add their names to a ledger of names that the country would like to never use. But from these individual obligations to serve the nation emerges a collective security from which we all benefit. Illogically, right now, the list is half as long as it could be. We should rely on our daughters as much as our sons to offer their skills, talents and abilities to a war that, should a draft ever revisit us, likely define their lives.
About the Author:
Major Jennifer Walters graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 2011 and completed her PhD in public policy at the Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, CA. After serving as a KC-10A instructor pilot, she is studying language as the preliminary portion of her Olmstead Scholarship.
* The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent those of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.