If something major pops off I don't think a draft will be necessary. There are still enough people out there that love this Country that we are willing to sign up willingly.
Then that means a draft might be even more likely.
Most people do not seem to know that for most of WWII not only did the US have a draft,
it was impossible to actually enlist.
Shortly after the US entered the war, it ended all enlistment because the training system was overloaded with recruits. Unless you had a critically needed skill (medical, pilots, etc), the only thing a recruiter could do was guarantee you a branch of service and job. So if you wanted to be a bomber tail gunner, a Marine, an Army Infantryman, or a Navy gunner, the recruiter would sign you up so that was the job you would get. But you still went home and waited for your number to be called in the draft.
The draft is not only to get people, it is also to control the number of people passing through the training system. And that would be even more critical if such a war happened again, as we only have a fraction of the number of training camps as we had in WWII. It would take probably six months to a year or more to set up new camps and get them staffed, so the 9 basic training camps we have would be running overtime trying to train as many as possible until more camps could be set up.
And to give an idea, back during WWII the Army National Guard alone had 30 basic training camps, the Army itself had an additional 15. Today there are no National Guard camps and the Army only has 5. The Navy had 7 basic training camps in WWII, today they have 1. Even the Marine Corps had three camps during WWII, with a forth ready to be activated if needed. Today it has two.
And with the large number of bases closed and eliminated by the multiple BRACs over the decades, I am not sure how many new bases could be built or repurposed for basic training even if needed.
