by Camilo Illanes ‘22

With the Russia/Ukraine war now reaching five weeks of fighting, many young Americans are wondering–and worrying–whether they will be drafted to fight Russia and help aid Ukraine. However, this common anxiety is largely the result of misinformation from social media platforms such as TikTok. The reality is that the possibilities of America reinstating the draft for this conflict is extremely unlikely.

Currently the United States professional military consists of almost 1.5 million people on active duty, with 857,261 reserve personnel. This is more than enough troops to protect Ukraine, and drafting unprofessionals would be unnecessary and inefficient. Even with these factors making conscription unlikely, if Biden for some reason decided he wanted to draft citizens, he would not be able to as it has been outlawed in the United States since 1973. In order for Americans to be drafted, Congress would first have to reinstate the law that allows U.S. citizens of age to get drafted.

Furthermore, Biden has made it very clear that if the United States sends troops to actively fight in Ukraine, Putin could expand the war into other NATO countries such as Poland. “That’s a world war – when Americans and Russians start shooting at one another, we are in a very different world than we have ever been,” Biden declared on February 11.

Since Biden declared that the United States would not directly fight in the conflict in Ukraine, the circumstances have become more complex and fraught with danger as Russia’s ground assault largely has stalled and the Ukrainians have put up an unexpectedly fierce defense of their country. Although Biden continues to rule out American troops on the ground, he is facing pressures to take other steps that will escalate U.S. involvement.

On March 7, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky called on NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine to limit attacks from Russian warplanes. A “no-fly zone” prevents countries from using war planes to attack military targets and civilians on ground. In order to do this NATO (a defense alliance of European countries and the United States) would have to fly their own military planes into Ukraine to block the Russians from bombing Ukraine. These NATO planes also likely would have to eliminate Russian air defenses in Ukraine and maybe even in Russia. The worry from the Pentagon is that this could lead to Russian and NATO planes shooting each other. “It would essentially mean the U.S. military would be shooting down planes, Russian planes. That is definitely escalatory.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki declared. The Biden administration is focused on assisting Ukraine by implementing heavy sanctions, and supplying Ukraine with resources and funding. The only way that the United States would get further involved in this conflict is if Russia expands the war into a NATO country, which remains unlikely.