Could You be Drafted to Fight in World War 3

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ing to reach victory right now. Every day Russia threatens to retaliate against NATO for supplying Ukraine. China has all but cut diplomatic ties with the United States over Taiwan, and its military has surrounded the island several times to conduct military exercises.

The

world

seems closer than ever to a third world war, but what if it really happened? Could you be recruited to fight in this future conflict? First, what is the draft? Are you eligible for one? For most of human history, armies were made up of part-time soldiers, typically peasants who were recruited to fight between the planting and harvest seasons. This was intentional, and most wars were limited to this era because without agricultural workers to plant and harvest crops, a nation would starve. At the very least, their economy would suffer greatly, and the expansion of war into a year-round affair did not really occur until political states became wealthy enough to be able to offset this cost by importing food from elsewhere. .

Even then, if you had a very specific and valuable specialization, like blacksmithing, you almost certainly wouldn't be recruited except in extreme emergencies: blacksmiths and other specializations were too rare and valuable to the state to be worth the risk. at the front or have their work interrupted in a campaign of months or years. Even when nations became large enough economically to offset the cost of losing a significant amount of their workforce, most warriors remained conscripts rather than professional soldiers. This was due to the enormous cost of training and equipping a full-time force. We tend to think of ancient economies in terms similar to our own, but the truth is that the wealth of even the greatest ancient empires paled in comparison to that of a modest nation today.

Ancient Rome, probably one of the richest empires in the ancient world, only had a GDP per capita of about 570 modern dollars. Today, Burundi is the poorest nation in the world and still has a GDP per capita of $1,711, making the average Burundian three times richer than the average Roman. What that meant was that for ancient empires, maintaining a professional volunteer force was an expensive undertaking and many simply

could

not afford it. Rome itself

could

only afford to abandon conscription during the imperial period, when the vast majority of its forces were professional volunteers who served for up to 40 years.

Not only was the cost of paying, training, and equipping a soldier high, but for many empires, removing thousands or tens of thousands of military-age men permanently from the economy was simply impossible. After all, each soldier was another member of society who would not contribute to the economy. Instead, armies relied heavily on conscription in preparation for and during war, and on hiring mercenaries, which had a much higher initial cost but was still cheaper than building an army from scratch. Mercenaries were for most of human history the bulwark of many armies, and it was not until the world entered the era of the Westphalian nation-state that mercenaries began to fall out of fashion, being replaced by professional armies. full-time jobs funded and maintained by the government. state.

Today, most nations have adopted the professional military model, although many, such as Russia, still maintain conscription to constitute a significant amount of their military force. Even nations like the United States of America, which have an all-volunteer military, are fully prepared to institute a draft in the event of a national emergency. Today, the United States maintains the Selective Service System, an independent agency charged with working out the logistics necessary to enact a national draft. The SSS requires all male U.S. citizens and noncitizen immigrants between the ages of 18 and 25 to register within thirty days of their 18th birthday.

For the next seven years, registrants will also be required to notify the SSS any change to your public record, such as a change of address. The agency was established by President Woodrow Wilson's 1917 Selective Service Act after the U.S. Army failed to meet its goal of expanding its forces to 1 million men following the U.S. declaration of war on Germany. The president now had the power to recruit men between the ages of 21 and 30 over a twelve-month period, and those selected were placed into one of five classifications. The men of Class 1 were the first to be recruited and would usually consist of single, healthy men.

Lower class men would be recruited last and there were deferrals for medical conditions and especially for men who were fathers or husbands. A year later, the age limit was raised to 45 as the war dragged on, and conscription would finally end in 1920, a few years after Germany's surrender. There is a common myth that the United States was caught completely unprepared for World War II, but this is far from true. In fact, despite having a strong isolationist streak, the United States was preparing for the eventuality of being drawn once again into the war in Europe and therefore the Selective Service and Training Act of 1940 became the first peacetime draft in US history.

The law required all men between the ages of 18 and 64 to register with the Selective Service, and originally

drafted

all men between the ages of 21 and 35 for service of at least 12 months, with some exemptions, of course. As the war in Europe intensified and Japan became increasingly antagonistic, the period of service was extended to 18 months and the age group was increased from 18 to 37 years. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the draft's length of service was increased to last for the duration of the war, plus an additional six months in the reserves. However, this draft would be notable for raising the issue of recruiting women for the first time in American history.

In 1945, President Roosevelt requested that the draft be expanded to include the hiring of nurses, as there was a critical shortage at the time. This debate soon extended to the issue of drafting all women, period, although it soon ended in the House of Representatives. Instead, the House passed an amended bill that included only nurses, but it was rejected in the Senate. However, attention to the issue generated a surge of volunteers, helping to fill a critical shortage. The modern Selective Service Act has its origins in 1948 and would create a permanent national system to allow for the rapid mobilization of the United States for war.

All men 18 years of age or older had to register with the Selective Service, and all men between 18 and 25 years old were eligible to be

drafted

with a minimum requirement of 21 months. This would be followed by 12 consecutive months of active duty or 36 consecutive months of service in the reserves, with a maximum amount of service of five years. However, due to deep budget cuts applied to the US military after World War II, only 100,000 men were drafted in 1948, but in 1950, with the start of the Korean War, conscription was instituted once again. The Korean War expanded the time of active duty from 21 to 24 months and set the minimum amount of military service at eight years instead of five.

Students going to university or in a full-time training program could apply for a waiver, and these were more likely to be granted to those studying critical fields of economics or the war industry, such as engineering. There was an attempt to include a Universal Military Training clause which would have required all men to undertake 12 months of military service and training, similar to what many European armies operate even today, but the clause was never passed. During the Vietnam War, when it seemed increasingly likely that the conflict would expand to one against the Soviet Union, the Military Selective Service Act of 1967 expanded the draft age to ages 18 to 55.

However, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 11119, which granted an exemption from the draft to married men between the ages of 19 and 26. However, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, eliminated the exemption for married men without children. Only married men with children or other dependents, or men married before the executive order went into effect, remained exempt. President Ronald Reagan would eventually repeal both executive orders in 1986. In 1969, President Richard Nixon attempted to address growing disapproval of the draft by switching to a lottery-based selection system. The first lottery drawing was held on December 1, 1969, for all registrants born between January 1944 and December 1950.

Two more lotteries would be held, the second on July 1, 1970 and the third on July 5. August 1971. This would also be the year that the Military Selective Service Law was amended to more closely resemble our modern system, with registration being mandatory for all men within thirty days of their 18th birthday. The new law would continue to classify registrants into different categories. Those registered in 1-A were eligible for general military service. 1-AO would be conscientious objectors who for ethical or religious reasons were only available for non-combatant military service, such as medical and logistics. 1-O classified conscientious objectors as eligible for alternative community service, and not for service directly in a war zone itself.

With a stronger economy and larger population, deferrals for students ended entirely, except for theology students who received a 2-D selective service classification. Men who had completed their military service and were therefore ineligible to be drafted again were classified as 4-A. In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford, whose own son had not registered for the draft, formally ended mandatory registration for men between the ages of 18 and 25. However, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter retroactively reinstated the Selective Service requirement for all male citizens between the ages of 18 and 26. In the modern era, attempts to dismantle the Selective Service system in 2016 failed to pass the US House of Representatives.

Later that year, a similar bill also failed to gain traction in the U.S. Senate. However, the issue of recruiting women was raised by the House Armed Services Committee, which voted to add an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2017 that would expand authority for draft registration to women. The Senate Armed Services Committee also voted to add a similar provision; If passed, it would have given the president the authority, but not the requirement, to order young women to also register with the Selective Service System. Instead, a provision was enacted in December 2016 that created a commission to study and make recommendations on draft registration, draft registration, general registration, and streamlining procedures to include women with selective skills such as medical, dental and, nursing, language skills, cyber skills, and STEM skills that the nationI had a critical need.

The commission would also include recommendations on recruiting people into critically needed fields without regard to age, potentially removing the limit on how old one can be and still be recruited. What we are left with today is a system in which all men between the ages of 18 and 25 must register with the Selective Service System within thirty days of their 18th birthday. This also includes certain categories of non-U.S. citizens, such as permanent residents, refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. The previous options for indicating that one is a conscientious objector no longer exist, but people can submit the claim once they have been drafted.

However, although women are not currently eligible for a national draft, a wartime amendment to include the draft of women would almost certainly be quickly passed. This is largely because, while women are still only allowed in a handful of combat arms fields, modern warfare has become a high-tech affair, and millions of well-equipped women would be needed. qualified and with technical skills to wage a modern conflict against a quasi-opponent country like Russia or China. So, would you be drafted to fight in World War III? Most likely, this will be the case, although it largely depends on the nature of the conflict.

Currently, the only realistic conflict that could be "called" World War III would be the one involving the United States and its allies against China and Russia. However, the world is no longer what it was in the 1940s, and even such a conflict would not be truly global. For starters, Russia lacks the ability to wage war far from its own borders. After suffering staggering losses in Ukraine, the nation simply does not have the equipment to wage war deeper into Europe. The key here is hardware, however, as the nation still has large amounts of military-age workforce it could draw on;

However, facing NATO armies on foot and without combat vehicles would be an act of national suicide, and this is where Russia's losses hurt the most. . Labor losses can be easily made up in a nation as large as Russia, but modern, expensive equipment is much more difficult to replace. Especially when your nation is under severe sanctions. As things stand, sanctions against Russia will make it nearly impossible for it to fully replenish its combat equipment losses with modern equivalents, although the nation is using its intelligence agencies to set up shell companies in an attempt to purchase high-tech weapons. that so much needs and sanctions.

Technological components such as microchips. With a resurgence in European defense spending and Russia stuck in a quagmire consuming weapons and equipment at an alarming rate, NATO armies will likely be able to defeat Russia on the battlefield without calling for a general draft, at least for its Western members. Members of the Eastern Front, especially those bordering Russia, may need to resort to conscription to quickly bolster their numbers before Western NATO troops can arrive in force. China's military is in much better shape to fight a big war; However, it is extremely unlikely that a conflict with China would require a full draft in the conventional sense.

This is because the war with China will be an affair that takes place at sea and in the air, with little to no action by the ground forces of the United States and its allies. The largest land campaign the United States and its allies could undertake would be the liberation of Taiwan, but even this would only be carried out after the Chinese navy and air force have been largely destroyed, leaving Chinese forces in Taiwan. at the mercy of allied air power. . Current Allied ground forces are likely sufficient for the task, especially since the Chinese would already be facing millions of Taiwanese recruits.

With the war limited to the air and sea, a general draft is almost certainly unlikely in the event of war with China. Since China can do little to threaten the continental United States, a war would be fought in its own backyard, and American forces would easily cut off the nation from much-needed seaborne oil imports and destroy the Kamchatka pipeline from Russia through cruise missile attacks. , China would be unable to carry out a full-scale war for a long time before its economy completely collapsed. The truth is that the United States has no rival anywhere in the world that can generate the amount of combat power it can, and there is no force today that can wage war against the NATO alliance.

This is nothing like the strategic landscape of the 1910s and 1930s, when the world was full of rival powers of almost equal strength. What is likely, however, is a modified national service draft to bring people into much-needed high-tech manufacturing sectors. As the first large-scale modern war, the Ukrainian war has shown the West how alarmingly rapidly stocks of smart weapons systems are being depleted. If the United States were to wage a high-intensity conflict against China and Russia simultaneously, smart weapons stockpiles could last only a few months, requiring a massive rearmament effort for which the United States is currently poorly prepared.

If combat losses extend to the weapons systems themselves, the United States is in an even worse position to replenish those losses, given how small its defense manufacturing capacity has become in recent decades. Simply put, the United States is not in a position at this time to replenish the high loss rates in advanced weapons systems such as submarines, aircraft, and Abrams tanks. People with the skills needed to expand this manufacturing capability would almost certainly be recruited, and their service would extend even after the war ended, as the United States quickly attempts to rearm. In fact, by the time defense manufacturing has expanded to meet the rate of combat attrition, the war will almost certainly be over anyway, although it would be essential to rearm quickly and prevent another state from taking advantage of the country's current weakness.

United States to launch a new war somewhere else. Thanks again to our sponsor Conflict of Nations, the free online pvp strategy game set in a modern global war! Get a special gift of 13,000 gold and one month of free premium subscription using the link. It's only available for 30 days, so don't wait, choose your country and start fighting your way to victory right now! Now go watch World War III Hour by Hour or click on this other video. The Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today!