What Ending the Military Draft Cost America – Foreign Policy

Analysis

The Cost of America Abandoning the Military Draft

Trump could be confident his war in Iran would not touch the daily lives of most voters.

By Julian E. Zelizer, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. Sign up for Julian’s newsletter, The Long View, here.

June 29, 2026, 12:01 AM

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It has become too easy for U.S. presidents to use military force overseas. Since 1973, the commander-in-chief has been able to deploy troops abroad without calling young men and women up through the draft. Presidents have relied on military technology, air power, and professional soldiers to project force while much of the electorate remains insulated from consequences of these decisions, including fears about how such decisions might affect members of their own families.

When President Donald Trump involved the United States in a major, protracted conflict in Iran, he could be relatively confident that the issue would not become a dominant force among voters. Although the decision generated controversy and division, including among Republicans who still adhered to the “America First” agenda, the consequences were unlikely to be front and center for most U.S. families. Few would have to contemplate the risk of air operations escalating into a large-scale ground war involving their own children, other than those who had signed up to serve. The absence of a draft has in effect created a firewall between U.S. military actions abroad and the daily lives of most Americans.

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The United States did not maintain a permanent draft for most of its history. Until Congress prepared for war against Japan and Germany in 1940, the nation relied on temporary wartime conscription, volunteer enlistment, and state militias to staff its combat forces. Public skepticism toward a standing draft reflected a broader aversion to a strong federal government. Geographic isolation, with the country protected by oceans on both sides, further reduced pressure on elected officials to sustain constant wartime footing. The result was that even after the Civil War and World War I, the country abandoned mandatory selective service once conflict ended.

Global war in Asia and Europe ultimately shifted public opinion. During the 1940 election, both President Franklin Roosevelt and his opponent, Republican Wendell Willkie, recognized that a peacetime military draft would likely be necessary, yet each understood the significant political risks of supporting the Selective Training and Service Act that had been proposed by New York Rep. James Wadsworth and Nebraska Sen. Edward Burke. Opposition to the legislation was intense. Religious leaders condemned it on moral grounds; unions feared it would be used as a cudgel against organized labor; progressives worried about a repeat of World War I, when then-President Woodrow Wilson’s administration used wartime conditions to suppress political dissent; and isolationists were convinced that a draft would guarantee permanent entanglements overseas.

After France surrendered to Germany in June 1940, public opinion began to shift, and Roosevelt privately concluded that a draft was essential. In August, he finally announced his support. Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act, and Roosevelt signed it into law on Sept. 16. The legislation required 21-year-old men to register with local draft boards for 12-month tours of duty and 10 years in the reserves, while setting up a national draft system. In 1941, Congress extended the length of military service and increased the number of men who could be drafted. Although efforts emerged after World War II to dismantle or replace it with a system of universal military training, conscription remained in place, almost uninterrupted (the system was temporarily allowed to expire in 1947), for decades. The range of eligible ages later expanded as well.

During the second half of the 1960s, the draft system came under intense fire. For many Americans, conscription had become inseparable from the disastrous and increasingly controversial war in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam War eroded the support that had sustained the draft since 1940. Each time that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told the nation that there would be a new draft call, the public was reminded of the direct human costs of President Lyndon Johnson’s policies. As Johnson bluntly told Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler, McNamara’s announcements “[get] every goddam father in the country upset, and every mother and every wife.” Even McNamara privately recognized the growing anger in the electorate and the deepening inequality in who was being sent to serve.

As young Americans began burning their draft cards, criticism of conscription intensified. Many argued that the government had no right to force young men into what they saw as a deadly and unnecessary war, while others highlighted the stark inequities of the system: Wealthier families often secured deferments for their sons, opportunities largely unavailable working class and poor Americans. The Selective Service’s structure comprised more than 4,000 local boards, which meant that there were no universal standards. A man’s classification could vary dramatically depending on where he lived.

One of the most famous acts of draft resistance occurred in April 1967, when the heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who had changed his name from Cassius Clay after joining the Nation of Islam, refused to sign up. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?” he asked. Ali applied for conscientious objector status but was convicted, sentenced to five years in prison, and fined $10,000. Although the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971, Ali was barred from boxing throughout the appeals process.

While Johnson signed legislation in 1967 that authorized the president to propose national draft standards, local boards retained the discretion to ignore those guidelines. Johnson backed away from proposals that would have reduced the number of graduate and undergraduate deferments—and the final bill increased undergraduate deferments instead.

The president who ultimately ended the draft was Republican Richard Nixon, who defeated Hubert Humphrey in 1968 after promising, without specifics, to bring the war to a close. Though far from a dove, Nixon understood how deeply unpopular the conflict had become and recognized that unless he eased the political pressure surrounding Vietnam, his administration would be mired in the same problems that consumed Johnson. Over 290,000 men were drafted in 1968. Nixon believed that the anti-war movement represented a vocal minority and that the “silent majority” opposed the protests, but he still grasped the magnitude of the political challenge the war posed. Through his policy of “Vietnamization,” the administration began withdrawing U.S. troops and shifting the burden of combat to South Vietnamese forces.

Nixon began signaling his willingness to eventually end the draft in 1969, announcing that he would allow the law to expire in 1973. He aimed to transition to an all-volunteer force. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, the administration’s point person on the issue, spoke of gradually reducing draft calls to lessen political resistance to ending the system. During the first year of the presidency, Nixon signed legislation establishing a more robust national lottery system and randomizing the order in which men were called. He also replaced Lewis Hershey, the controversial director of the Selective Service System, with former university president Curtis Tarr, who pursued administrative reforms. Two years later, Nixon eliminated student deferments. “For eight years,” he told Republicans, “Democrats talked about draft reform; we have done something about draft reform.”

Editor’s Note: Featured image at top by WP AI. –DrWeb

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