National Security: Ongoing Review of the Military Selective Service Process Could Benefit from Additional Information
Released: 2018-01-10T00:00:00

Letter

Background

The Military Selective Service Act established the Selective Service System whose mission is to be prepared to provide trained and untrained manpower to DOD in the event of a national emergency when directed by the President and the Congress. Additionally, the Selective Service System is to be prepared to implement an alternative service program within the civilian community for registrants classified as conscientious objectors during a draft. The Selective Service System is an independent agency, and it maintains a database that includes the names, birthdates, social security numbers, and mailing addresses of men ages 18 through 25 who could be drafted into the service of our nation, if needed, in the event of a national emergency. Further, the Selective Service System also is to conduct peacetime activities, such as public registration awareness and outreach; responding to public inquiries about registration requirements; and providing training and support to its workforce of career, non-career, full-time and part-time employees, uncompensated employees, and selected military personnel.

The Military Selective Service Act does not currently authorize the use of a draft for the induction of persons into the armed forces. In order to meet a national emergency requiring a mass mobilization, Congress and the President would be required to enact a law authorizing a draft to supplement the existing force with additional military manpower. In the event of a draft, the regulation governing the Military Entrance Processing Stations would have the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, with input from the military services, provide the Director of the Selective Service System with the number of personnel needed to be drafted. The Selective Service System would then conduct a lottery and send induction notices to selected draftees to supply the personnel requested by the Secretary of Defense. Each draftee would be required to report to one of DOD’s 65 Military Entrance Processing Stations throughout the country at a specific time and date to undergo assessments of their aptitude, character, and medical qualifications in order to determine whether they are fit for military service based on standards set by each military service. Fully qualified draftees would receive induction orders and would be transported from one of the Military Entrance Processing Stations to the appropriate military service’s entry- level training location. According to DOD, the Selective Service System must deliver the first inductees within 193 days from when the President and the Congress authorize a draft, and the military services then are to train, equip, and accommodate in other ways the new inductees.

The military services are generally smaller today than they have been in many years. In fiscal year 2003, for example, DOD’s total active military end strength was approximately 1.5 million, while in fiscal year 2017 the number was 1.38 million. Additionally, DOD’s total workforce mix has also changed. For example, in late 2003 DOD directed the military services to convert certain military positions to federal civilian or contract positions based on evaluations that showed that many military personnel were being used to accomplish work that was not military essential and that civilians could often perform these tasks in a more efficient and cost- effective manner than military personnel. In May 2013, we reported that DOD officials stated that about 50,000 military positions were converted to DOD federal civilian positions or to contractors since fiscal year 2004 in order to devote more military positions to the support of ongoing military operations.

Under current law, women may serve voluntarily in the armed forces but are not required to register with the Selective Service System. In the 1981 case of Rostker v. Goldberg, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of our nation’s practice of registering only men. Recognizing the purpose of registration was to prepare for a draft of combat troops and since women were excluded from combat, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could exclude women from registration. DOD gradually began to eliminate prohibitions on the assignment of women to direct ground combat positions and on January 24, 2013, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rescinded a 1994 rule preventing women from serving in direct ground-combat positions and directed the military services to open all closed positions and occupations to women by January 1, 2016. In December 2015, the Secretary of Defense announced that all military occupational specialties were open to women and removed all final restrictions on the service of women in combat. As part of the congressional notification process when DOD decided to open previously- closed positions and occupations to women, the department was required to provide a detailed legal analysis of the implications of the proposed change with respect to the constitutionality of the Military Selective Service Act to men only. DOD’s July 2017 report on the purpose and utility of a registration system for military selective service stated that in December 2015, DOD advised Congress that the opening of all positions and occupations to women “further alters the factual backdrop” to the Supreme Court’s ruling on a challenge to the exemption of women from selective service registration. However, the report stated that DOD took no further stance on the legal issues raised by the then-Secretary of Defense’s decision to open all military positions to women. Further, DOD stated that it would consult with the Department of Justice as appropriate regarding these issues.

DOD Included Information on the Six Required Reporting Elements but Additional Information May Benefit the Commission’s Ongoing Review

DOD Included Information on the Six Required Reporting Elements in Its Report

DOD included information on each of the six required reporting elements in its July 2017 report to Congress and the Commission on the purpose and utility of a registration system for military selective service, as shown in table 1. In preparing the report, officials within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs stated that they coordinated and consulted with subject matter experts at the Selective Service System and the Joint Staff as well as with officials from selected organizations within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, including the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command. Further, the DOD report references internal DOD documents, a policy publication from the Congressional Research Service regarding Selective Service issues, statements from former DOD executives, and publications from contributing authors on web-based foreign policy and national security discussion sites for additional support.

Additional Information May Be Useful for the Commission’s Ongoing Review of the Military Selective Service Process

While DOD included information on the six required reporting elements in its report, we identified additional information that may be useful in supporting the ongoing review of the military selective service process by the Commission. Specifically, based on our review of DOD’s report and our prior work, the Commission could benefit from additional information on (1) DOD’s requirements and timelines for the induction of individuals into the military services who are selected through a draft, and (2) the perspectives of the military services on the military selective service processes.

First, one of the six required reporting elements in the NDAA for FY 2017 required DOD to provide a detailed analysis of its personnel needs in the event of an emergency requiring a mass mobilization, along with a timeline for obtaining these inductees. In response, DOD provided the personnel requirements and a timeline that was developed in 1994 and that have not been updated since. These requirements state that, in the event of a draft, the first inductees are to report to a Military Entrance Processing Station in 193 days and the first 100,000 inductees would report for service in 210 days. DOD’s report states that the all-volunteer force is of adequate size and composition to meet DOD’s personnel needs and it has no operational plans that envision mobilization at a level that would require a draft. Officials stated that the personnel requirements and timeline developed in 1994 are still considered realistic. Thus, they did not conduct any additional analysis to update the plans, personnel requirements, or timelines for responding to an emergency requiring mass mobilization. Further, they said that they were limited in the amount of time that they were given to respond to the congressional mandate and that they believed it would be most helpful to produce a report that provided basic information that could serve as a starting point for the Commission to begin a more in-depth review of the military selective service process. As previously discussed, in 2012, we reported that changes in the national security environment require DOD and the services to reassess their force structure requirements, including how many and what types of units are necessary to carry out the national defense strategy. We reported that these changes represented junctures at which DOD could systematically reevaluate service personnel levels to determine whether they are consistent with strategic objectives. As such, we recommended that DOD establish a process of periodically reevaluating DOD’s requirements for the Selective Service System in light of changing operating environments, threats, and strategic guidance. Since DOD did not perform additional analysis to reevaluate its requirements or timelines for obtaining inductees to respond to this mandate and the most recent requirements were determined based on assumptions developed in 1994, we continue to believe our 2012 recommendation is valid. An updated analysis would also benefit the Commission by informing their study and recommendations.

Second, the military service officials that we met with told us that their perspectives on the selective service processes that would affect them had not been solicited in the preparation of DOD’s report. For example, while the military services are responsible for training inductees upon their mobilization and integrating them into the force, service officials expressed concerns to us regarding whether, for example, they would have the training facilities, uniforms or funding to receive, train, equip, and integrate a large influx of inductees in the event of a draft. Additionally, the services are expected to provide support to the Selective Service System during a national emergency. A 1997 memorandum of understanding between the Selective Service System and DOD indicates, among other things, that the Department of the Army will provide 1,500 enlisted Army retirees to augment the Selective Service System within 72 hours after a draft is initiated. According to officials within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness-Military Personnel Policy, this memorandum of understanding was reviewed and revalidated in 2014. However, Army officials told us that they believed some of their service-specific procedures might require updates identifying individuals to augment the Selective Service System’s staff, especially the retired personnel that would need to be recalled to duty. They thought it would be beneficial for officials within the Office of the Secretary of Defense to conduct a thorough, top-down review, and lead an update of service instructions related to supporting a draft to ensure the services are prepared to provide their share of personnel if needed. These Army officials said, however, that their higher Army headquarters saw no operational reason to review their policies and procedures related to mass mobilization given that DOD has no operational plans that envision mobilization at a level that would require a draft.

As discussed previously in this report, DOD’s workforce mix has been changing. For example, over the last decade, the use of unmanned aerial systems has emerged as an integral part of warfighting operations and the demand for their use has outpaced the Air Force’s ability to produce pilots to operate them. Additionally, each of the services has reported critical skill gaps in such areas as various military medical specialties. Further, challenges exist in identifying cyber capabilities of all National Guard units, as required by law, which could be used for the support of a cyber-related emergency. Officials from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness-Military Personnel Policy stated that critical skills identified as necessary today may not be the critical skills needed in future crises. Additionally, they said that creating and maintaining tools, such as databases of individuals with these needed critical skills, is costly and may become outdated quickly. We agree that the requirements for critical skills will evolve over time; however, any discussion of a draft using the selective service process— as presented in DOD’s July 2017 report—that focuses on specific military occupational specialties would benefit from the perspectives and input of officials from the military services and the impact a draft may have on meeting those demands. Specifically, these officials would be helpful in identifying the needed critical skill sets for their emerging mission demands and the impact a draft may have on meeting those demands.

DOD officials within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs stated that they are currently collecting the perspectives of the military services on the selective service process and plan to provide this information to the Commission. DOD officials explained that they did not incorporate information from the military services into their report because DOD’s involvement in any potential decision to initiate and implement a draft is mostly centralized within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, not within the individual military services. They further stated that information regarding the level of additional personnel that would be needed using a draft in the event of a national emergency comes from the war plans that are developed and maintained by the Joint Staff. Additionally, they said that they primarily produced a report that characterized the overall processes and was a factual account of how DOD interacts with various aspects of the Selective Service System.

Another provision within the NDAA for FY 2017 required the Secretary of Defense and other Cabinet-level government officials, along with any experts designated by the President, to submit to the Commission and Congress recommendations for the reform of the military selective service process not later than 7 months after the Commission’s establishment date. To accomplish this, officials from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs said that they initially developed a questionnaire on which the Commission provided feedback. These officials stated that they sent it to 18 organizations, including the Cabinet positions listed in the act and to additional organizations that were recommended by the National Security Council or that had some role or responsibility in the event of a draft. In order to produce the Secretary of Defense’s submission, these officials further stated that they requested each of the military services and the Joint Staff to complete the questionnaire by November 2017. Further, these officials viewed the questionnaire as an opportunity for the respondents—the military services in the case of DOD—to provide their ideas regarding military selective service processes, both current and future.

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to DOD for review and comment. In an email, the Director of Accession Policy within the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy stated that the military services concurred with the report and DOD had no additional comments.

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees; the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service; the Secretary of Defense; the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs; the Commander, U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command; the Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; the Commandant of the Marine Corps; and the Director, Selective Service System. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix I.

Appendix I: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Kimberly Seay, Assistant Director; Rebecca Beale; Vincent Buquicchio; Mae Jones; Kevin Keith; Jordan Mettica; and Amber Sinclair made key contributions to this report.