Trump's Iran War and the Cost of Ending the Draft
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- Trump was confident his protracted Iran war would not touch the daily lives of most voters, since the absence of the draft since 1973 lets presidents deploy professional soldiers and air power without conscripting civilians, creating what the article calls a "firewall" between military actions and American life
- FDR signed the Selective Training and Service Act on Sept. 16, 1940, after France's fall to Germany that June shifted public opinion, requiring 21-year-old men to register with local draft boards for 12-month tours and 10 years in the reserves
- Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's draft call announcements "[got] every goddam father in the country upset," LBJ complained, as Vietnam fueled resistance — over 290,000 men were drafted in 1968 alone and opponents burned their draft cards
- Muhammad Ali refused induction in April 1967, asking why he should "drop bombs and bullets on brown people" while Black Americans were "treated like dogs"; he was convicted, sentenced to five years, and fined $10,000, and the Supreme Court didn't overturn his conviction until 1971
- Richard Nixon ended the draft in 1973 partly to undercut the anti-war left, telling aides "ending the draft gives us breathing space in Vietnam," while economists Milton Friedman and Martin Anderson provided the intellectual case for an all-volunteer force
- The draft's structure produced stark class inequities — more than 4,000 local boards meant no universal standards, and wealthier families secured deferments largely unavailable to working-class Americans
Why it matters: Without the draft, the political cost of overseas wars falls on the small volunteer minority rather than the broader electorate, explaining why Trump's Iran conflict has not become a dominant voter issue. Over 290,000 men were drafted in 1968 alone — that scale of civic sacrifice no longer exists to constrain presidential war decisions.
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