# All-Volunteer Force The **All-Volunteer Force (AVF)** is the American military as constituted since **1973**, when the authority to induct draftees expired and the services began filling their ranks entirely through enlistment. It was recommended by the Gates Commission in 1970 — with [[Milton Friedman]] among its fifteen members, arguing the draft was a hidden tax-in-kind on the young — and implemented under [[Richard Nixon]]. The KB's interest is not in the policy but in its **second-order political effect**, argued most forcefully by [[Andrew Bacevich]] in *[[Breach of Trust]]* (2013): by ending conscription the United States severed war from citizenship. Roughly one percent of the population serves; the rest incur no obligation and face no risk. Military action stops generating the domestic friction — draft calls, campus protest, dinner-table arguments — that historically forced wars to end. In this account the volunteer force is not merely a recruiting arrangement but **the enabling machinery of the [[Forever Wars]]**. ## How the draft ended | Date | Event | |---|---| | 1969 | Nixon appoints the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force, chaired by former Defense Secretary Thomas Gates | | 1970 | The commission's report recommends ending conscription, framing the draft as a labor-economics problem with hidden costs | | July 1, 1973 | Induction authority expires; the AVF begins | | 1975 | Draft registration suspended; the [[Selective Service System]] goes into "deep standby" | | July 2, 1980 | [[Jimmy Carter]] signs Proclamation 4771, restoring registration for men born in 1960 and after | | December 18, 2025 | The FY2026 NDAA, signed by [[Donald Trump]], makes registration automatic by data-matching; implementation deadline December 18, 2026 | Registration is not a draft. Since 1980 men 18–25 have been required to register, but any actual induction would require a new act of Congress. The 2025 change moves the burden of registering from the individual to the government; it does not revive conscription. ## The recruiting crisis and recovery The AVF's vulnerability is that it depends on the labor market. In fiscal 2022 the Army reached only about 45,000 of its 60,000 goal — Army Secretary Christine Wormuth called it the service's "most challenging recruiting year since the start of the all-volunteer force." In fiscal 2023 the Department of Defense as a whole fell roughly 41,000 short across active and reserve components, with the Navy and Air Force also missing targets. The recovery came fast. The Army met its fiscal 2025 goal of 61,000 contracts in early June 2025, about four months early, and its fiscal 2026 goal of 61,500 in May 2026. The Navy, which had missed fiscal 2023 by about 7,450 sailors, closed fiscal 2026 with 45,112 accessions against a 45,000 goal, and the Air Force and Space Force also met their fiscal 2026 goals; both services raised their fiscal 2027 targets. Explanations differ by who is giving them: the administration credits its own leadership and morale; the services point to the Future Soldier Preparatory Course (launched 2022), larger bonuses, a maximum enlistment age raised to 42 and relaxed waivers for minor marijuana offenses; analysts note the upturn began before the 2024 election and that the fiscal 2024 Army goal had been cut to 55,000. ## The counter-argument The [[Vietnam War]] was fought *with* a draft and still ran eight years, so conscription plainly does not by itself prevent adventurism. The AVF's defenders also argue that a professional force is more capable, and that the [[Civil-Military Relations]] gap Bacevich describes is a cultural problem a draft would not cure. ## See Also - [[Breach of Trust]] · [[Andrew Bacevich]] · [[Civil-Military Relations]] - [[Forever Wars]] · [[Militarism]] · [[Military-Industrial Complex]] - [[Selective Service System]] · [[Department of Defense]] · [[Iraq War]] · [[Afghanistan War]] - [[Concepts Hub]]