Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

: Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft; Articles Archive; 16 January 2026; Hits: 760

Automatic Draft Registration to Begin in 2026

From Draft NOtices, January-March 2026

— Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

(See important update at the bottom of this article.)

On December 18, 2025, Donald Trump signed into law the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Buried in it was a section that now requires automatic Selective Service System (i.e., draft) registration for men 18-25. It will take effect in December 2026.

The Pentagon is Creating its Own Recruiting Crisis

From Draft NOtices, January-March 2026

— Rick Jahnkow

Photo credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security

In the last two years, most of the military's numerical goals for first-time enlistments were reached by lowering acceptance standards and using special pre-boot camp preparation programs to boost the acceptance rate of applicants who would ordinarily have been rejected under past standards. While these measures made recent recruiting goals reachable, Pentagon leaders are now expressing concern about a new possible recruiting crisis driven by societal trends, including a sharp drop in births that began in 2007. The impact of this downward population trend will be to further shrink the pool of eligible recruits despite the lowering of enlistment standards.