The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

Amid war build-up, Selective Service System sends the White House its plan to identify and locate potential draftees

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April 9, 2026 / Edward Hasbrouck / Antiwar.com - On March 30th, the Selective Service System (SSS) sent the White House its proposed regulations for “automatic” [sic] draft registration for review and approval before they are made public. This is the first visible step in the transition from trying to get young men to sign themselves up for a military draft, to trying to sign them up “automatically” by aggregating data requisitioned from other Federal agencies.

This year-long process began with the enactment of the SSS proposal for “automatic” registration in December 2025. The new scheme is supposed to go into operation in December 2026.

The SSS has been keeping a low profile to avoid calling attention to its attempt to lay new groundwork for a draft in the middle of a major military escalation. The SSS hasn’t issued a press release in the four months since the enactment of the “automatic” registration law, has no details of its plans for “automatic” registration on its website, and has delayed responding to my FOIA request for those plans. This has led to hasty and credulous reports in the last few days by journalists who saw the notice of the proposed rules but hadn’t followed the legislation, didn’t know to expect this next step in the process, and weren’t aware of the widespread and increasingly organized opposition to this plan.

  español - This segment aired on April 8, 2026 on Here & Now.

April 8, 2026 / Indira Lakshmanan, Ashley Locke, & Grace Griffin / wbur.org - During the Vietnam War, nearly 500,000 men in the U.S. applied for conscientious objector exemptions to avoid the draft. But since the country moved to an all-volunteer military force in 1973, those applications have dropped significantly.

Until now.

The nonprofit Center on Conscience and War, which advises service members on filing conscientious objections, says the number of conscientious objector applications has increased sharply since the U.S. and Israel launched war on Iran in late February.

He said in a typical year, the center sees about 50 conscientious objector applications from active-duty military personnel. But that number has sharply increased since the U.S. and Israel launched the war in Iran in February.

Since this war started,” Mike Prysner, an Iraq War veteran who is the executive director of the Center of Conscience and War, said, “we fielded hundreds of calls from active-duty military who do not want to participate and are strongly opposed to the war.”