Could the U.S. Bring Back the Draft?

It’s been over 50 years since the U.S. transitioned to an all-volunteer military force. But with rising threats from China, the demands of modern warfare, and persistent recruiting shortfalls, is it time to ask the unthinkable: Could the draft return?

 In this episode of At the Boundary, GNSI’s Dr. Guido Rossi sits down with Katherine Kuzminski, Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), to explore whether the U.S. military is prepared to scale up in a great-power conflict.

 Together, they discuss:
 • Legal, cultural, and logistical roadblocks to reinstating the draft
 • The gender equity questions that could halt a draft in court
 • What history (and “Nifty Nugget”) teaches us about readiness
 • Why deterrence might depend on preparing for the very thing we hope to avoid
 Kuzminski draws on her experience to unpack what mobilization really requires, including processing capacity, civilian coordination, and a whole-of-government draft authority.

 With America's defense industrial base under pressure, this conversation tackles one of the hardest questions in U.S. national security today: If the moment comes, can we rise to meet it?

Links from the episode:

• The Golden Dome for America 

• From Attrition to Asymmetry: A Strategic Assessment of Recent Developments in the Russia-Ukraine War

"What's Really Happening?" Podcast Episodes:

• Is the “Golden Dome” the Future of U.S. Nuclear Missile Defense?
• Is Operation Spiderweb a Glimpse Into the Future of Conflict? 

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

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The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Transcript

Glenn Beckmann: 0:12

Glenn, Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Glenn Beckman, communications manager at GNSI, and your host for today's at the boundary. This week on the podcast, we have a very special guest, Catherine Kozminski. She's the Director of Studies at CNAs, the Center for New American Security, where she leads the Center's work on national security human capital. She'll be discussing the United States military's all volunteer force and the challenges facing their recruiting efforts with our own Dr Guido Rossi, whose research frequently focuses on military recruitment. The two will also discuss whether or not the US military draft is likely to return. We'll listen in on that interview in a moment. First, big thanks to all our speakers from last week's Trans Atlantic forum on cybersecurity. We hope you had a chance to join us for the live stream. If you weren't able to jump on you can watch the recorded video on our YouTube channel. We'll drop a link in the show notes, and we also want to say thanks one more time to our collaborators on the event, the University of Paris, Saclay, France's leading cybersecurity institution, and one of the leading authorities in all of Europe, cyber Florida, helping the state become a national leader in cybersecurity education, academic and practical research, as well as the all new Bellini College of AI cybersecurity and computing, the first named college in the United States with a focus on AI and cybersecurity. This was a lot of fun, and we're really looking forward to the next time we can all work together again. You know, last week, we published two new GNSI decision briefs, one focused on the golden dome, and the other a current strategic assessment of the Russia Ukraine war. You can find both on our websites. You know, GNSI decision briefs are bite sized pieces of research, easy to read and designed to help you quickly understand a topic. You should check them out. By the way, GNSI Executive Director, retired Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, discusses both of those topics on the latest episodes of his video podcast. What's really happening. You can find those on our YouTube channel as well. Okay, it's time now for our featured interview this week. GNSI Research Fellow, Dr Guido Rossi, has been on the podcast before discussing military recruitment. He returns this week for a conversation with Katherine Kozminski, the Director of Studies at the Center for New American Security. Her work focuses on the human capital side of national security, and for our purposes today, zeros in on the challenges facing our military's all volunteer force, which has been in place for over 50 years. If you're old enough to remember, prior to 1973 the United States had a draft, and the two discuss whether or not the US will need to reinstate the draft today, as well as a military historian, Dr Rossi's research is a great background for this conversation. Guido, take it away.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 3:31

Thank you so much for the introduction and thank you, Kate for being here today with us. Thanks for having me so it's only been a couple of years that we have passed the 50 year anniversary of the all volunteer force, which was established in 1973 and today, 50 years later, do you think that that is still the best choice for the United States, considering that many other nations, not only adversary powers like China and Russia, but also some Allied powers like South Korea or Sweden, they instead rely on conscription.

Unknown: 4:10

Yeah, so I think it's a fair question, because we've obviously, we've seen the recruiting challenges of the past few years, and quite honestly, that's something that's been a challenge for the army on and off over the last 53 years, since we began the all volunteer force. However, I still think that the all volunteer force provides the professional force that the United States needs in order to meet the emerging threat environment. At the same time, it's worth noticing that the all volunteer force was always intended to be the backbone of the United States military, and that there is a structure in place to rapidly expand the force that would require quite a bit of political capital, but we. Wherein the President and Congress could vote on instituting a draft if we needed to rapidly expand the force that we have, the all volunteer force that we have, and to take that Professionalism and Leadership that we have in our officer corps, in our non commissioned officers, and then feed in a larger force of conscripts should an existential threat require it?

Dr. Guido Rossi: 5:24

So on this point, you wrote a great article in in July 2024 on the drafts and mobilization planning and policy recommendations for that so, so if the ADF or the old volunteer force is still today, the best choice for the US. Why has there been so much talk about the need for a draft, or maybe of reinstituting the draft recently?

Unknown: 5:54

I think in part, it's because we see an evolving threat environment that looks a lot more like pre World War Two than it looks like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were some individuals calling for consideration of a draft or conscription during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, just given the pace of deployments that were being put on the all volunteer force. And in some ways, we used a different form of compulsory service during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we use stop loss, which is an individual set to get out of the military, and we tell them, actually you're not able to leave. And there were extensions of deployments. So for the army, it went from 12 month deployments to 15 month deployments. The Marine Corps, it went from six month deployments to nine month deployments. So there was a bit of a compulsory element that we used during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those wars were not at the scale that we experienced in, say, World War Two, and when we look at a potential conflict in the Indo Pacific, we might expect to see the need for rapid expansion that will outstrip what the all volunteer force can provide. Another really sobering thought is the expected casualty rates in a conflict in the Indo Pacific theater that may outpace the ability of the all volunteer force to backfill and in fact, that is part of the purpose of conscription or a draft, would be to provide and backfill the those positions that are now unfilled because of casualty rates. But again, that's a sobering topic that we don't tend to want to think about a lot. And I think everyday Americans shouldn't have to walk around thinking about that, but it is the job of policy planners to be thinking about these less than favorable outcomes.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 8:04

So it's, it's an extreme measure, essentially, that we're, that you are arguing for in the article with, so with, with mobilization planning and draft planning, right? So the article and correct me if I'm wrong, it's not arguing for the institution of a draft, but for better, better plan for a potential draft.

Unknown: 8:28

That's right. So we would say that the the report that we wrote and the subsequent op ed that we wrote based on it, is not in any way advocating for a draft. We're saying that if a draft were to be implemented, it had better work, and especially because the only reason that a president and a Congress would vote on a draft is because we are facing an existential threat, because it is very costly politically to vote yes on a draft. We want to make sure that that tool would actually function. The reality is that we haven't fully tested what it would take to call up a draft since we transitioned on July 1 of 1973 to the all volunteer force. There were some mobilization exercises through the 70s and the 80s that gave us some really useful findings. So the biggest of them was Operation nifty nugget which looked which found that, you know, we didn't really have the transportation network that we needed across the joint force. So we saw the genesis of transcom, the transportation command. We the findings from that exercise also indicated that we needed more Homeland Defense focus and resources at state and local levels, and that's how we got FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has Yes, we think of them as doing disaster relief and support, but there's also a homeland defense aspect to FEMA. And a coordination for a mobilization effort. So So we've had some useful exercises in the past. There was a call in the in the National Defense Authorization Act to begin mobilization exercises, yet again, to test where there might be some gaps or seams in the mobilization process that we'd want to think through before there's a conflict, not to fear monger, not to scare folks, but to figure out where there are gaps in the capability and where we might want to shore up our nation's response to a credible threat.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 10:37

And if article correctly, that was in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022 Correct, right? So what kind of gaps specifically were identified?

Unknown: 10:49

So there are a couple. One is that, as we were talking about the all volunteer force and the professionalism of the all volunteer force, our professionalized force is not necessarily in a place to receive draftees right from a cultural perspective and from a structural and process perspective. Another challenge that we identified is there's been a lot of coverage of the the maps, processing timeline, so physical exams and clearing folks for service, and that was during an era where we weren't even able to meet our recruiting targets. Now, what happens if we have 100,000 individuals showing up at the front door of a map station over the course of just a couple of months? How do we build up the capacity to actually process those who are being drafted? There are less there are things that we might not even think about, right? So draft notifications are sent through the mail, and Americans are much less apt to update their address with at the post office in 2025 than they were in 1973 and so that may lead to some delays or confusion. We also gave a little bit of thought to what happens. What's the role of social media? On the one hand, you could have some positive examples of, say, a famous football player being drafted and then going to serve. And on the other hand, you could sow a lot of confusion or or public dissent on social media that may dissuade folks from from answering the call for for a draft notification. And then the last is probably the most controversial, but thinking about no we currently, the law is that we have all male Selective Service registration, and that has been upheld by successive Supreme Court cases over time that found that because only men could serve in combat positions, all male Selective Service registration was constitutional when we saw the introduction of women in the combat arms in 2015 the underpinning of the Supreme Court cases no longer stands, and we haven't had the Supreme Court or Congress really answer the question of, is it constitutional to have an all male draft, or all male Selective Service registration and then subsequently an all male draft, if that were passed, Is that constitutional? Because we will likely see a situation where, if a draft is implemented, their men will have standing to file a court case saying it's not fair. Either it's all Americans of the qualified age or it's no Americans of qualified age, and that, in and of itself, will raise questions about the validity of the draft while that gets worked out in the courts at a time when we'll have needed to mobilize individuals. So it's not about advocating for whether or not women should be included in selective service registration, but rather just flagging that there will be delays in court cases if we do get to this case,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 14:25

that would be the worst possible. That's right,

Unknown: 14:28

exactly. So perhaps it's worth Congress actually making a decision one way or another and putting it in law. So those two options would be that we either get rid of selective service registration, which has complications, because then what happens if we actually do need to mobilize, or we go the other direction, and we say all American youth between the ages of 18 and 26 which is the current age eligibility, must register with selective service. And then we can figure out the details on the back end of what positions and roles individuals are put in.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 15:07

That raises several questions in my mind. First of all, do you envision an opposition from from the female section of the population to the potential of a draft and maybe a resistance to that,

Unknown: 15:21

yeah, so it's complicated on both ends. So on the one hand, there are those who believe that only men should be serving in the military, and so they would push back to the inclusion of women from the perspective that they don't think that women should be compelled to serve in the military. And then on the other side, there is a concern of, I don't want to be drafted, which is something that we also see across the male population right. There are certainly folks in every conflict who have dodged the draft. Didn't believe in the underlying principles of the conflict they were being called into, or didn't feel compelled into service. Now, there are ways to go into alternative service, but that requires quite a bit of a process at the local level to determine who must serve and who must not serve. So yeah, it is very complicated and thorny issue.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 16:17

Do you think simplifying avenues and the process for individuals to serve in alternative capacities or alternative national service would help not only facilitating the draft process if it were to happen, but also the passing of new legislations to do some draft pre draft planning,

Unknown: 16:42

yeah, and, you know, we certainly see that there are needs across the broader mobilization enterprise that aren't just military service, right? So traditionally, what alternative service looked like was medical care, was the forces needed to rapidly build basing here in the United States for training, right? So thinking about using mobilizing national service as a way, as on the construction project side of things. And then certainly, we have a lot of challenges right now in our defense industrial base, workforce, in our maritime industrial base. And so there could also be ways to compel international service for those functions, more akin to what we saw in the World War Two era, and the use of women who were back on the home front while men were drafted

Dr. Guido Rossi: 17:37

overseas. So in a way, is to catch two birds with one stone, right? Is that how you say it, and not only facilitate the draft, but also revitalize ship building, which is another very important problem that this administration has pledged to to solve, and and, like I was saying, it's, it's a little bit of a Achilles heel in our industry, in our ability for industrial mobilization, right?

Unknown: 18:03

That's right. And so Shipbuilding is a big piece of it, but also the munitions building is another area where the war in between the Russia and Ukraine has exposed the industrial capacity of the US and my colleagues here at CNS, Becca, Wasser and Phil shears have spent a lot of time thinking about the defense industrial base as part of mobilization.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 18:31

Are there any other recommendations specifically that stand, stand out in the in the article, or in your mind right now? And the article came out last summer, right? And so the question is, what's been the progress on those recommendations?

Unknown: 18:49

Yeah, so I do know that the services and DOD as a whole have followed through on some of the recommendations from the 2022 NDAA to stand up working groups thinking through these issues, the issue of mobilization in a for a future conflict. I think there's also openness on the part of selective service. Now how selective service operates is fully inscribed in the law, and so it does actually require Congress to provide more authority there, but there has been some interest in, you know, one of the things we identified is that the Selective Service collects five pieces of information about individuals, three of which they already know. So it's your name, your date of birth, your social security number, your mailing address, and, more recently, the addition of your email address. That's all the information that they have. Wouldn't it be great for them to be able to build a bigger database of you know, what are the critical skills, experiences, education that individuals might have? Yeah, and you could incentivize the sharing of that information, if, say, by sharing this information, you're able to indicate your preference of which service you were called up into, whether that was the Army and the Marine Corps, the Air Force, the Navy. So I think there's openness to that. There's also hesitation, and I can easily see how, you know, it could be received by the American public as a escalation, or moving in the direction of having a draft if they if individuals were asked to share this information. So it is a very delicate balance to figure out which information to share and collect.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 20:44

And then I remember reading in your article that you were also calling for a more centralized authority or director for a potential draft. Is

Unknown: 20:55

that, yeah, and so when we think about the draft, we tend to think only about the Department of Defense and the military services, and certainly they're the ones who are most affected by the outcome and efficiency of a draft. But the reality is, when we mobilize the nation at this kind of scale, we have to consider the role of the Department of Labor. What are some of the critical skills that we need to make sure remain in the United States that aren't deployed overseas. We need to think about the role of the Department of Education. We need to think about homeland security and law enforcement. And so it does require more of a whole of government approach. And so one of the things that I would advocate for is a person on the National Security Council who's responsible for thinking across the whole of government and the whole of society, such that if we did have to mobilize right away, you are able to draw across the span of control of all of these departments and agencies, whereas Right now, they each kind of operate independently.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 22:01

So these, these sound like very logical and very, very good recommendations in my mind. So what is a hold up?

Unknown: 22:12

Yeah, it's a really uncomfortable talk topic to talk about and to think about, right? You have to think about the worst case scenario and then make a plan that requires something of, if not all of American society, much of American society, and so there have to be sensitivities in how it's talked about and planned for that doesn't lead to, you know, some sort of mass hysteria, or This, this belief in this inevitability of a conflict with the PRC specifically, right? We don't want to talk in terms of the about that being inevitable. And in fact, we want to make sure, on the flip side, that we're building out our deterrent capability such that that never happens. And at the same time, there needs to be a way to navigate this conversation. So when we look at some of the debate, the debates in Congress, specific to the issue of women and the draft, but I think it's much broader, it points to a much broader issue, which is this is a really uncomfortable topic to talk about, and it should be uncomfortable to talk about it. There is a responsibility and a duty to care that the President has, that Congress has Secretary of Defense, and the service leads have in executing this wisely and and effectively. And so there's some trade offs that are made on the well, do we want to talk about this or not, but we should have a plan that is sitting on the shelf. Should we need it?

Dr. Guido Rossi: 23:48

And so it's also so politicians, essentially also would like to be re elected, and so that, okay, yeah. And also another question is, some would see any mobilization pre planning as as an escalatory move, right? But what can also be seen as a as part of deterrence,

Unknown: 24:17

yes, so that's something that we gave a lot of thought to and a piece of it is from the open source reporting, we can see that the PRC only wants to engage in a conflict if it's going to be short and decisive, and they're going to be able to come to the fight with overwhelming power, such that it won't be a protracted conflict when we game out in in unclassified war games, when we game that out, we find over and over again. And so our colleagues at CSIS have done some unclassified war games. We've done unclassified war games here at CNS, we find that any such conflict with. The PRC will be a protracted conflict. And so our ability to signal that we have the capability to sustain a protracted conflict, which is the thing that the PRC does not want, can serve as a deterrent to them starting the fight in the first place. Now they have to believe that we'd be willing to use it right? And so there are questions as to whether, you know, I think if, if the conflict were the result of some sort of attack on the US homeland that looks very different than public perception of what the United States could and should do. Say in a PRC invasion of Taiwan.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 25:44

So, so what do you see as the biggest challenges for the United States and its allies in in case of embolization against China or Russia in the next few years?

Unknown: 25:59

Yeah, I think we see that playing out right now across NATO, not necessarily in the United States, but across several of our allies, particularly those who are right at Russia's front door or who are close into the fight. And so we see hard conversations happening, for example, in Germany about whether or not they should bring back a draft or compulsory service. As of right now, they have brought back their equivalent of registration for eligible men, and we see that there's an evolution, both in Russia and Ukraine, about expanding who should serve and who should be compelled to serve. Now, their models are a little bit different than ours, in that we tend to our draft would apply to 18 to 26 year olds. And in Russia and in Ukraine, we see a much older conscript force. And so what we've seen over time, particularly in Ukraine, is the continued lowering of the age of those who are eligible for conscription. In Russia, they've been able to politically it's not in Putin's interest to have to continue to conscript. So what we've seen is an escalation of the incentives that are offered for recruitment in Russia, but they may run back into a case where they do need to conscript again. So in the first in the beginning of the war, they were relying on conscripts, and they moved away from that, because, again, a draft of any type in any country is not necessarily a politically viable or welcomed approach to war fighting,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 27:57

Yeah, so you sort of hinted at it. But in neither in Ukraine, nor in Russia, they actually launched total mobilization. They were always kind of half hearted and partial mobilizations. Are those? Are those good models for the US to to look at and take inspiration from, in case of of the need for immobilization?

Unknown: 28:23

Yeah, I think we see two separate models that speak to the power of being the individual who's protecting your homeland, versus being in a military that is deploying to another country. And so in Ukraine, the appetite, especially the beginning of the war, to serve, was very high, because the stakes were very high. And for Russians there, it's a different a different perspective, in that it didn't feel as existential, though for some it certainly may have for the United States, I think it is instructive to look at the Ukraine model in particular, because this is what is required of a society when it is facing a truly existential threat. Is different than perhaps what we're used to, or what we would want in steady state every day engagement, and so that's why it has been so difficult to plan for. Well, what would it look like if we truly were under an existential threat?

Dr. Guido Rossi: 29:31

And for for Russia, especially, we've seen their reliance also on alternative sources of manpower, prisoners and and PMCs, which is the modern name for essentially mercenaries, right? Do you think maybe also looking at the past American military experiences during the war, the war on terror? When there was a quite heavy reliance on PMCs, private military companies. Do you see these alternative sources of manpower as potentially playing a role? How and how have they helped or made mobilizations for Russia and Ukraine

Unknown: 30:19

possible? Yeah, so it certainly is one way to augment manpower, I think, in the United States. And even looking at the models that were used in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are challenges to that. One is that using PMCS is rather expensive for a country, and the other is just the ethical bounds and the legal bounds that the United States is comfortable with look quite a bit different from what Russia is comfortable with. So certainly, you know, we did see a number of groups that were on the ground. They tended to provide more force protection or to kind of set up the Installation Management in a conflict zone in a way that's very different from how the Russians are actually using them as a paramilitary organization. And I think it runs counter to us principles, both, you know, the legal and ethical complications, but also just culturally, it goes back to our belief in having a professionalized all volunteer force. It's a little bit counter to that, even though you're right, we did have private military companies that were augmenting some of the resources in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Dr. Guido Rossi: 31:40

and so, and also so, you mentioned how the appetite for war in Ukraine was quite high early on, because they really felt like they needed to defend their homeland. How have? How has the course of the war for not just Ukraine, but also Russia, changed their approach to mobilization and what they needed to do to get the needed personnel,

Unknown: 32:06

yeah. So there's certainly fatigue on both sides and understandably, right and and when we talk about the casualty rates, it's not just about who was killed, but also those who were injured, who you know were years on into this conflict, and so there's a high level of fatigue. I think in part, that's why you're also seeing more and more adaptation of technology on the battlefield right. And certainly the use of drones on the battlefield has gotten a lot of attention. How do we replace human capital with technological advances, while at the same time recognizing that war is fundamentally a human endeavor, and we're never going to have a situation where it's purely technology on technology.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 32:50

Excellent. And so do you think, do you think that you know exactly looking at how Ukraine, and Russia, Ukraine especially, has struggled sort of, to keep the momentum going as the war transitioned from, you know, a Patriotic War of defense to one of attrition. Should that? Should that? Should that consideration help inform pre pre mobilization, pre draft planning for the

Unknown: 33:25

US. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's certainly a cautionary tale in the need for the MO, the overwhelming force at the beginning of the fight, such that it doesn't protract to the point that we're now seeing in Russia and Ukraine, for either side, and again, this is the precise thing that open source reporting would indicate that the PRC is also terrified of. So I think it points back to the need to strengthen the deterrent value of US strategic assets in which I include the human capital element, such that we don't get to that point. But that should we get to that point we are prepared to go in with that overwhelming force and shorten the length of such a conflict.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 34:12

Another thing that has been seen in the case of Russian mobilization was its increased reliance, especially like in more recent, more recent months, on also North Korean troops as an alternative source of so manpower coming from allies. And you know, as of, as of now, the United States are still very close to the rest of its NATO Alliance and its NATO allies. How would, however, an eventual, maybe not total, pull out from NATO, but a distancing of the United States from from that from the Alliance? How would that impact a potential. Potential mobilization. Or, you know, how does the presence of the United States within the NATO alliance, you know, facilitate a potential mobilization?

Unknown: 35:13

Yeah, so it is certainly a challenge that NATO faces. And I spoke at the NATO school back here in March about this precise topic with a number of allies, thinking about if the United States is is dedicating fewer forces to NATO and to the European continent. One of the challenges is that NATO itself doesn't govern how individual states derive and contribute their forces to the NATO force. They set the NATO requirement, but they don't. NATO itself doesn't dictate that. You know, Great Britain must provide X number of troops while, while Sweden must provide their own, and instead, it's a kind of total force structure, which is how you see very different recruitment and conscription models across each of the NATO states. Right? So they can run that independently, and they should be able to run that independently, and they just need to contribute, what the what the top line number is to NATO itself. If the United States were to withdraw that you know, the second largest contributor to the NATO alliance of manpower is from Turkey. It's not actually even from the continent. And so thinking through, okay, what would the gap be, or what requirements would be there for NATO, and that's whether the United States pulls out, in a political move, which has been indicated by some of the comments, certainly by Vice President's comments at the Munich Security Conference. And then alternatively, what happens if the United States has to withdraw troops from the NATO? From forward presence within NATO, because they need them in the Indo Pacific. And so that's another scenario that NATO has to plan for, and that the European allies have to plan for. What What are we going to do to fill that gap? Should the United States be elsewhere.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 37:23

So, okay, so in the eventuality that we were involved in a in a war with a major adversary power, how do you assess American capabilities for mobilization? How do you assess the needs and its capabilities to fulfill these needs. One of

Unknown: 37:45

the things that brought me a little bit of hope over the course of our study was we ran a mobilization exercise with a number of individuals who currently serve in the military, who are or from academia or from the policy space. And one piece of feedback that we received was, you know, the United States didn't have a clear infrastructure for mobilization prior to World War One, and we figured it out really quickly, and then we learned and we perfected it a bit before going into World War Two, but the point that he was trying to make was it might take an existential threat to actually drive the system forward, and so practicing it isn't going to get us necessarily to where we would be in a conflict, but we have a track record of being able To mobilize and get up to speed. Now, I'm a little more pessimistic than that, but I do think that there is some value to the perspective that it takes actually having the threat to force all of the functions to work together,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 38:54

thinking back to again, other examples of American military past and history thinking about specifically War Two, where over 16 million individuals were mobilized within the armed forces, and many, many more millions were mobilized internally as civilians in the workforce and other roles. Do you think the US would be able to pull a similar effort. Or, even better, do you think a similar effort would ever be needed in case of a major conflict with a matter of peer?

Unknown: 39:33

Yeah, so I think that the threat of that requirement does exist now where it fits on the spectrum of how likely or unlikely that is will be determined. But I do think that there are scenarios in which we would need to mobilize the whole of society. And I do think that, you know, if we look back just culturally, we are different now than. We were in in the early 1940s at the same time. It's worth highlighting. You know, we tend to look at World War Two through these rose colored glasses that all of American society came together. We had deserters for the draft in World War Two as well. We're looking at it. You know, hindsight is 2020 we're looking at it from the perspective of how it ended. But the reality is, there was a lot more debate internally then too, and so that can also give us a little bit of optimism, or at least realistic visions of you know, it does require a lot and it doesn't. It might not necessarily require all

Dr. Guido Rossi: 40:43

well, I can only thank you so much for your insightful comments on the topic of mobilization and draft. Thank you so much for having me here at CNS and to speaking for genocide today.

Unknown: 40:58

Yeah, it's been great. You.

Glenn Beckmann: 41:03

A special thanks today to Dr Guido Rossi GNSI, Research Fellow and military historian, for his interview today with Katherine Kozminski, the Director of Studies at the Center for New American Security, interesting perspectives on the recruiting challenges facing the US military, and whether or not those challenges will mean the return of the draft next week, on at the boundary, we'll welcome GNSI, Senior Research Fellow, Dr Jeff rogg, whose recently published book has garnered a lot of attention around the country. We'll be talking with him about the spy in the state the history of American intelligence, and in the book, he proposes that intelligence, also known as spying in some circles, is decidedly un American. We'll ask him about that and a lot more. That's next week. Thanks for listening today. If you like the podcast, please subscribe and let your friends and colleagues know about us. We're on Apple podcasts, Spotify, overcast, all the major platforms. We're also available on our YouTube channel. If you like your podcasts that way, we'd appreciate a like, follow or subscribe wherever you find us. That's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we've found to be worthy of attention and discussion. I'm Glenn Beckman, thanks for listening today. We'll see you next week at the boundary. You