Member-only story
Calm Down: The Draft Isn’t Coming Back Anytime Soon — Here’s Why
On Friday, January 2, the White House announced “At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
Almost immediately and throughout the weekend, #WW3Draft became the top trending item on Twitter. In addition, searches for “World War 3” and “World War 3 draft” spiked on Google Search. Thousands of young men who were required to register with the Selective Service System to qualify for federal financial student aid, took to Twitter to explain (with memes) how they would dodge the draft if universal conscription returned.
One Twitter user even boasted and posted that he had blocked the account of the United States Army, with the (faulty) reasoning that: “They can’t draft you if they can’t see you.”
Interest in and fear of the possibility of a new draft was so high that it apparently crashed the website for the Selective Service System:
Due to the spread of misinformation, our website is experiencing high traffic volumes at this time. If you are attempting to register or verify registration, please check back later today as we are working to resolve this issue. We appreciate your patience.
