Draft evasion or conscription evasion is avoiding a government-imposed obligation to serve in the military forces. Sometimes draft evasion involves refusing to comply with the military draft laws. and laws against it go back thousands of years. although in certain contexts that term has also been used non-judgmentally
Practices that involve lawbreaking or taking a public stand are sometimes referred to as draft resistance. Although draft resistance is discussed below as a form of "draft evasion", draft resisters and scholars of draft resistance reject the categorization of resistance as a form of evasion or avoidance. Draft resisters argue that they seek to confront, not evade or avoid, the draft.
Draft evasion has been a significant phenomenon in countries as different as Belarus, Colombia, Eritrea, the Netherlands, Canada, France, Russia, South Korea, Syria, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States. Accounts by scholars and journalists, along with memoiristic writings by draft evaders, indicate that the motives and beliefs of the evaders cannot be usefully stereotyped.
Draft evasion practices
thumb|upright=1.2|right|alt=Crowd of women in a city square|Anti-draft meeting held by women in New York City, 1917
Young people have engaged in a wide variety of draft evasion practices around the world, some of which date back thousands of years. This section aims to delineate a representative sampling of draft evasion practices and support activities as identified by scholars and journalists. Examples of many of these practices and activities can be found in the section on draft evasion in the nations of the world, further down this page.
Draft avoidance
One type of draft avoidance consists of attempts to follow the letter and spirit of the draft laws in order to obtain a legally valid draft deferment or exemption. Sometimes these deferments and exemptions are prompted by political considerations. Nearly all attempts at draft avoidance are private and unpublicized.
- Claiming a student deferment, when one is in school primarily in order to study and learn.
- Claiming a medical or psychological problem, if the purported health issue is genuine and serious.
- Holding a job in what the government considers to be an essential civilian occupation.
- Not being chosen in a draft lottery, where lotteries determine the order of call to military service; or not being in a certain age group, where age determines the order of call.
- Deliberately self-injuring oneself.
- Becoming pregnant primarily in order to evade the draft, in nations where women who are not mothers are drafted.
- Having someone exert personal influence on an officer in charge of the conscription process.|205x205px]]
Draft evasion that involves overt lawbreaking or that communicates conscious or organized resistance to government policy is sometimes referred to as draft resistance. Examples include:
Actions by resisters
- Declining to register for the draft, in nations where that is required by law.
- Living "underground" (e.g., living with false identification papers) and working at an unreported job after being indicted for draft evasion.
- Going to jail, rather than submitting to induction or to alternative government service.
- Shooting and/or killing draft officers and civil authorities.
Actions by supporters or resisters
thumb|In 1863, [[New York City draft riots|anti-draft riots broke out in New York City.
- Destroying a military draft agency's records.
- Organizing or participating in a riot against the draft.
- Building an anti-war movement that treats draft resistance as a vital and integral part of it. Examples of draft evasion can be found in many nations over many time periods:
Australia
Australian men were conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War; as in the U.S., this was resisted.
Belgium
19th-century Belgium was one of the few places where most citizens accepted the practice of legally buying one's way out of the military draft, sometimes referred to as the practice of "purchasable military commutation". During both World Wars, political parties collapsed or were torn apart over the draft issue, and ethnicity seeped into the equation, with most French Canadians opposing conscription and a majority of English Canadians accepting it. When the first draft class (single men between 20 and 34 years of age) was called up in 1917, nearly 281,000 of the approximately 404,000 men filed for exemptions. Throughout the war, some Canadians who feared conscription left for the United States or elsewhere.
World War II
Canada introduced an innovative kind of draft law in 1940 with the National Resources Mobilization Act. While the move was not unpopular outside French Canada, controversy arose because under the new law, conscripts were not compelled to serve outside Canada. They could choose simply to defend the country against invasion. Following costly fighting in Italy, Normandy, and the Scheldt, overseas Canadian troops were depleted, and during the Conscription Crisis of 1944 a one-time levy of approximately 17,000 NRMA men was sent to fight abroad. Many NRMA men deserted after the levy rather than fight abroad. There is an obligatory military draft for all young men. Nevertheless, according to Public Radio International, two types of draft evasion are widespread in Colombia; one is prevalent among the relatively well-off, and another is found among the poor. According to The Economist, "release can depend on the arbitrary whim of a commander, and usually takes years". Most leave for Europe or neighboring countries; in 2015, Eritreans were the fourth largest group illicitly crossing the Mediterranean for Europe.
Approximately 1,500 men failed to show up for the draft at the start of the Continuation War (1941–1944, pitting Finland against the Soviet Union), and 32,186 cases of desertion were handled by the courts. There were numerous reasons for draft evasion and desertion during this period: fear or war-weariness, objection to the war as an offensive war, and often maintained a rotation to guard their camps. They received support from sympathizers who could buy from the black market; failing that, they stole provisions to feed themselves. The Finnish Army and police actively searched for them, and if discovered, a firefight often ensued. The Finnish Communist Party was able to operate among draft evaders. Sixty-three death sentences were handed out to deserters; however, many of them were killed in military or police raids on their camps. Deserters captured near front lines would often be simply returned to the lines, but as the military situation deteriorated towards the end of the war, punishments were harsher: 61 of the death sentences given were in 1944, mostly in June and July during the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive, where Finnish forces were forced to retreat.
At the conclusion of the war, the Allied Control Commission immediately demanded an amnesty for draft evaders, and they were not further punished.
France
In France, the right of all draftees to purchase military exemption – introduced after the French Revolution – was abolished in 1870.
Napoleonic era
Draft evasion was a big problem for the French military under Napoleon. people had either evaded a draft or deserted from the military, due to the surge in conscription; possibly facing harsh consequences. Around this time period, a gendarmerie was assembled, aiming to hunt for the people who deserted the military or dodged drafts; the French also enforced the mandatory carrying of passports, among other measures.
Israel
thumb|295x295px|Rock star [[Aviv Geffen is one of several Israeli entertainers who have encouraged draft evasion. It is universal for all non-Arab Israeli citizens, men and women alike, and can legally be evaded only on physical or psychological grounds or by strictly Orthodox Jews, although the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to reject the latter exception in June 2024. The draft has become part of the fabric of Israeli society: according to Le Monde senior editor Sylvain Cypel, Israel is a place where military service is seen not just as a duty but a "certificate of entry into active life".
Yet by the middle of the decade of the 2000s, draft evasion (including outright draft refusal) and desertion had reached all-time highs. Fully 5% of young men and 3% of young women were supposedly failing their pre-military psychological tests, both all-time highs. Another group, New Profile, was started by Israeli peace activists to encourage draft refusal. Despite commonalities, she found a difference between the draft refusers and the military selective-refusers:
<blockquote>The analysis of these interviews demonstrated that, in their appeal to [the] Israeli public, members of Yesh Gvul and Courage to Refuse utilized symbolic meanings and codes derived from dominant militarist and nationalist discourses. In contrast, draft-resisters, members of New Profile and Shministim, refusing to manipulate nationalistic and militaristic codes, voice a much more radical and comprehensive critique of the state’s war making plans. Invoking feminist, anti-militarist and pacifist ideologies, they openly challenge and criticize dominant militarist and Zionist discourses. While the majority of members of Yesh Gvul and Courage to Refuse choose selective refusal, negotiating conditions of their reserve duty, [the] anti-militarist, pacifist, and feminist ideological stance of members of New Profile and Shministim leads them to absolutist refusal.</blockquote>
Russia/Soviet Union
thumb|upright=1.2|right|Draft registration office near Moscow. In the mid-2010s, half of all eligible Russians called up were reported to be evading service. A declassified [[Central Intelligence Agency report revealed that the Soviet elite routinely bribed its sons' way out of deployment to Afghanistan, or out of military service altogether.
Invasion of Ukraine
In September 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine over 600,000 mobilization-eligible citizens left the country to avoid the draft. Reportedly, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia became primary, visa-free destinations for Russians seeking to avoid President Vladimir Putin’s mobilization order. Finland, Poland and the Baltic countries announced they will not offer refuge to Russians fleeing mobilization.
In January 2023, Kazakhstan announced they were tightening visa rules, a move that is expected to make it more difficult for Russians to remain in the country. Kazakhstan said it would extradite Russians wanted for evading mobilization. In early 2023, the Biden administration resumed deportations of Russians who had fled Russia due to mobilization and political persecution. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agreed to share personal data of Russians fleeing mobilization.
South Korea
South Korea maintains mandatory military service. South Koreans are reportedly so hostile to draft evasion that one South Korean commentator said that it is "almost like suicide" for celebrities to engage in it. Yoo Seung-jun was one of the biggest stars on the South Korean rock scene until 2002, when he chose to evade the draft and become a U.S. citizen. South Korea subsequently deported him and banned him for life. The article, by veteran correspondent Donald Kirk, explained that South Korea's government did not allow for conscientious objection to war; as a result, 669 mostly religiously motivated South Koreans were said to be in jail for draft evasion in 2013. Only 723 draft evaders were said to be in jail worldwide at that time.
According to the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), in June 2013 Lee Yeda became the first South Korean to be granted asylum specifically because he evaded the South Korean draft. His asylum claim was granted by France. "[In South] Korea, it is ... difficult to find a job for anyone who has not completed their national service," Lee was reported to have said. "Refusing to serve means that, in society, your life is terminated."
Syria
thumb|upright=1.2|right|alt=Bombed-out big city street|Aleppo during the [[Syrian civil war|Syrian Civil War. By 2016, 70,000 draft evaders had fled Syria, After the Syrian Civil War broke out in 2011, many draft-age men began fleeing the country, sometimes paying thousands of dollars to be smuggled out. Others paid to have their names expunged from the draft rolls. and others remained undetected within its borders.
In order to minimize draft evasion, Tunisia began allowing young men to substitute "civilian" service (such as working on rural development projects) or "national" service (such as working as civil servants) for military service.
The Ukrainian military itself has stated that, during a partial call-up in 2014, over 85,000 men failed to report to their draft offices, and nearly 10,000 of those were eventually declared to be illegal draft evaders. Despite the ban on leaving Ukraine, an estimated 600,000–850,000 Ukrainian men fled to Europe after the Russian invasion. The Polish government offered, and the Lithuanian government considered, the repatriation of Ukrainian men living in their countries to Ukraine.
United States
The United States has employed a draft several times, usually during war but also during the Cold War. Each time the draft has been met with at least some resistance.
In Sketches of America (1818) British author Henry Bradshaw Fearon, who visited the young United States on a fact-finding mission to inform Britons considering emigration, described the New York Guard—although he did not name it—as he found it in New York City in August 1817:
<blockquote>Every male inhabitant can be called out, from the age of 18 to 45, on actual military duty. During a state of peace, there are seven musters annually: the fine for non-attendance is, each time, five dollars. Commanding officers have discretionary power to receive substitutes. An instance of their easiness to be pleased was related to me by Mr. —, a tradesman of this city. He never attends the muster, but, to avoid the fine, sends some of his men, who answer to his name; the same man is not invariably his deputy on parade: in this, Mr. — suits his own convenience; sometimes the collecting clerk, sometimes one of the brewers, at others a drayman: and to finish this military pantomime, a firelock is often dispensed with, for the more convenient wartime weapon—a cudgel. Courts-martial have the power of mitigating the fine, on the assignment of a satisfactory cause of absence, and in cases of poverty. Upon legal exemptions I cannot convey certain information. During a period of three months in the late war, martial law existed, and no substitutes were received. Aliens were not called out.</blockquote>
Civil War
thumb|upright=1.2|right|Parody of Confederate troops forcing a pro-Union Southerner (left foreground) and other reluctant Southerners to comply with the Confederate draft, c. 1862.
Both the Union (the North) and the Confederacy (the South) instituted drafts during the American Civil War – and both drafts were often evaded. Some believe that draft evasion in the South, where manpower was scarcer than in the North, contributed to the Confederate defeat.
left|thumb|280x280px|[[Eugene V. Debs spoke out against the draft during World War I. Under the Espionage Act of 1917, activists including Eugene V. Debs and Emma Goldman were arrested for speaking out against the draft.
Despite such circumstances, draft evasion was substantial. According to one scholar, nearly 11 percent of the draft-eligible population refused to register, or to report for induction; according to another, 12 percent of draftees either failed to report to their training camps or deserted from them. In 2017, historian Michael Kazin concluded that a greater percentage of American men evaded the draft during World War I than during the Vietnam War.
World War II
According to scholar Anna Wittmann, about 72,000 young Americans applied for conscientious objector (CO) status during World War II, and many of their applications were rejected. Some COs chose to serve as noncombatants in the military, others chose jail, and a third group – taking a position in between – chose to enter a specially organized domestic Civilian Public Service.
Korean War
The Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, generated 80,000 cases of alleged draft evasion.]]
thumb|upright=1.2|Draft card burning in New York City, 1967
The Vietnam War (1955–1975) was controversial in the US and was accompanied by a significant amount of draft evasion among young Americans, with many managing to remain in the U.S. by various means and some eventually leaving for Canada or elsewhere.
Avoidance and resistance at home
Significant draft avoidance was taking place even before the US became heavily involved in the Vietnam War. The large cohort of Baby Boomers allowed for a steep increase in the number of exemptions and deferments, especially for college and graduate students. The head of US President Richard Nixon's task force on the all-volunteer military reported in 1970 that the number of resisters was "expanding at an alarming rate" and that the government was "almost powerless to apprehend and prosecute them". It is now known that, during the Vietnam era, approximately 570,000 young men were classified as draft offenders,
As US troop strength in Vietnam increased, some young men sought to evade the draft by pro-actively enlisting in military forces that were unlikely to see combat in Vietnam. For example, conscription scholars Lawrence Baskir and William Strauss say that the Coast Guard may have served that purpose for some, though they also point out that Coast Guardsmen had to maintain readiness for combat in Vietnam, and that some Coast Guardsmen eventually served and were killed there. although that too was less than foolproof: about 15,000 National Guardsmen were sent to Vietnam before the war began winding down. Folksinger Arlo Guthrie lampooned the paradox of seeking a deferment by acting crazy in his song "Alice's Restaurant": "I said, 'I wanna kill! Kill! Eat dead burnt bodies!' and the Sergeant said, 'You're our boy'!" The book 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft was co-authored by Tuli Kupferberg, a member of the band The Fugs. It espoused such methods as arriving at the draft board in diapers. Another text pertinent to draft-age men was Jules Feiffer's cartoon novella from the 1950s, Munro, later a short film, in which a four-year-old boy is drafted by mistake.
Draft counseling groups were another source of support for potential draft evaders. Many such groups were active during the war. Some were connected to national groups, such as the American Friends Service Committee and Students for a Democratic Society; others were ad hoc campus or community groups. Many specially trained individuals worked as counselors for such groups.
thumb|265x265px|[[David Harris (activist)|David Harris and "The Resistance" helped organize Stop the Draft Week in Oakland, California, October 1967. Students for a Democratic Society sought to play a major role in it, as did the War Resisters League, and other groups. It was founded by David Harris and others in the San Francisco Bay Area in March 1967, and quickly spread nationally. The insignia of the organization was the Greek letter omega, Ω, the symbol for ohms—the unit of electrical resistance. Members of The Resistance publicly burned their draft cards or refused to register for the draft. Other members deposited their cards into boxes on selected dates and then mailed them to the government. They were then drafted, refused to be inducted, and fought their cases in the federal courts. These draft resisters hoped that their public civil disobedience would help to bring the war and the draft to an end. Many young men went to federal prison as part of this movement. David Miller's I Didn't Know God Made Honky Tonk Communists (2001), Jerry Elmer's Felon for Peace (2005), and Bruce Dancis's Resister (2014). Harris was an anti-draft organizer who went to jail for his beliefs (and was briefly married to folk singer Joan Baez), According to a 1978 book by former members of President Gerald Ford's Clemency Board, 210,000 Americans were accused of draft offenses and 30,000 left the country. More recently, Cortright estimated that 60,000 to 100,000 left the US, mainly for Canada or Sweden. Others scattered elsewhere; for example, historian Frank Kusch mentions Mexico, scholar Anna Wittmann mentions Britain, Draft evader Ken Kiask spent eight years traveling continuously across the Global South before returning to the US
thumb|upright=1.2|left|[[Mark Satin (left), director of the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, counseling American draft evaders, 1967]]
thumb|upright|left|Tattered copy of the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada (1968) atop Anti-Draft Programme stationery
The number of Vietnam-era draft evaders leaving for Canada is hotly contested; an entire book, by scholar Joseph Jones, has been written on that subject. In 2017, University of Toronto professor Robert McGill cited estimates by four scholars, including Jones, ranging from a floor of 30,000 to a ceiling of 100,000, depending in part on who is being counted as a draft evader. In 2025, a major article about Vietnam-era draft evaders in Canada's conservative National Post newspaper put the number at 50,000.
Though the presence of U.S. draft evaders and deserters in Canada was initially controversial, the Canadian government eventually chose to welcome them. Draft evasion was not a criminal offense under Canadian law. The issue of deserters was more complex. Desertion from the US military was not on the list of crimes for which a person could be extradited under the extradition treaty between Canada and the US; however, desertion was a crime in Canada, and the Canadian military strongly opposed condoning it. In the end, the Canadian government maintained the right to prosecute these deserters, but in practice left them alone and instructed border guards not to ask questions relating to the issue.
In Canada, many American Vietnam War evaders received pre-emigration counseling and post-emigration assistance from locally based groups. Typically these consisted of American emigrants and Canadian supporters. The largest were the Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters, the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, and the Vancouver Committee to Aid American War Objectors. Journalists often noted their effectiveness. The Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada, published jointly by the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme and the House of Anansi Press, sold nearly 100,000 copies, and one sociologist found that the Manual had been read by over 55% of his data sample of US Vietnam War emigrants either before or after they arrived in Canada. In addition to the counseling groups (and at least formally separate from them) was a Toronto-based political organization, the Union of American Exiles, better known as "Amex." It sought to speak for American draft evaders and deserters in Canada. For example, it lobbied and campaigned for universal, unconditional amnesty, and hosted an international conference in 1974 opposing anything short of that.
Those who went abroad faced imprisonment or forced military service if they returned home. In September 1974, President Gerald Ford offered an amnesty program for draft dodgers that required them to work in alternative service occupations for periods of six to 24 months. In 1977, one day after his inauguration, President Jimmy Carter fulfilled a campaign promise by offering pardons to anyone who had evaded the draft and requested one. It antagonized critics on both sides, with the right complaining that those pardoned paid no penalty and the left complaining that requesting a pardon required the admission of a crime.
thumb|266x266px|Vancouver city councillor [[Jim Green (Canadian politician)|Jim Green was one of several draft evaders who became prominent in Canada.]]
thumb|upright=0.8|right|Gay rights advocate [[Michael Hendricks and René Leboeuf|Michael Hendricks (right) is another draft evader who affected Canadian life.]]
It remains a matter of debate whether emigration to Canada and elsewhere during the Vietnam War was an effective, or even a genuine, war resistance strategy. Scholar Michael Foley argues that it was not only relatively ineffective, but that it served to siphon off disaffected young Americans from the larger struggle. By contrast, authors John Hagan and Roger N. Williams recognize the American emigrants as "war resisters" in the subtitles of their books about the emigrants, and Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada author Mark Satin contended that public awareness of tens of thousands of young Americans leaving for Canada would – and eventually did – help end the war.
Some draft evaders returned to the U.S. from Canada after the 1977 pardon, but according to sociologist John Hagan, about half of them stayed on. This young and mostly educated population expanded Canada's arts and academic scenes, and helped push Canadian politics further to the left, though some Canadians, including some principled nationalists, found their presence or impact troubling. American draft evaders who left for Canada and became prominent there include author William Gibson, politician Jim Green, gay rights advocate Michael Hendricks, attorney Jeffry House, author Keith Maillard, playwright John Murrell, television personality Eric Nagler, film critic Jay Scott, and musician Jesse Winchester. Other draft evaders from the Vietnam era remain in Sweden and elsewhere.
Two academic literary critics have written at length about autobiographical novels by draft evaders who went to Canada – Rachel Adams in the Yale Journal of Criticism and Robert McGill in a book from McGill-Queen's University Press. Both critics discuss Morton Redner's Getting Out (1971) and Mark Satin's Confessions of a Young Exile (1976), and Adams also discusses Allen Morgan's Dropping Out in 3/4 Time (1972) and Daniel Peters's Border Crossing (1978). All these books portray their protagonists' views, motives, activities, and relationships in detail.</blockquote>
Later memoirs by Vietnam-era draft evaders who went to Canada include Donald Simons's I Refuse (1992), George Fetherling's Travels by Night (1994), and Mark Frutkin's Erratic North (2008).
Prominent people arguably manipulating the system
For decades after the Vietnam War ended, prominent Americans were being accused of having manipulated the draft system to their advantage.
According to a column by E. J. Dionne in The Washington Post, by 2006 politicians whom opponents had accused of improperly avoiding the draft included George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Bill Clinton.
thumb|upright|[[Ted Nugent reportedly took extreme measures to avoid the draft. In a 1990 interview with a large Detroit newspaper, Nugent made similar statements.
Actor and comedian Chevy Chase also misled his draft board. In 1989, approximately two decades after the fact, Chase revealed on a television talk show that he avoided the Vietnam War by making several false claims to his draft board, including that he harbored homosexual tendencies. He added he was "not very proud" of having done that. Several politically charged books subsequently discussed Chase's behavior.
Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh avoided the Vietnam draft because of anal cysts. In a 2011 book critical of Limbaugh, journalist John K. Wilson accused Limbaugh making "hyperbolic attacks on foreign policy".
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's deferment has been questioned. The LDS Church eventually agreed to cap the number of missionary deferments it sought for members in any one region. After Romney dropped out of Stanford University and was about to lose his student deferment, he decided to become a missionary; and the LDS Church in his home state of Michigan chose to give him one of that state's missionary deferments.
Attention has also been paid to independent Senator Bernie Sanders's failure to serve. In an article in The Atlantic, it was reported that, after graduating from the University of Chicago in 1964, and moving back to New York City, the future candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination applied for conscientious objector status – even though as Sanders acknowledged to the reporter, he was not religious. (Sanders was opposed to the Vietnam War. At the time, however, CO status was granted entirely on the basis of religious opposition to all war.
U.S. president Donald Trump graduated from college in the spring of 1968, and became eligible for military service. Trump however, due to a personal friend of his father's, a medical doctor, was granted a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels. The diagnosis allowed Trump to receive a medical deferment.
Pardons
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter issued a pardon giving unconditional amnesty to Vietnam war draft resisters.