The world is running out of soldiers

A war between the United States and China would involve the kind of military manpower the world hasn’t seen in decades. As a point of contrast, around 156,000 troops landed on the beaches of France during the Normandy invasion in 1944, which was commemorated by world leaders earlier this month. Some experts estimate that if China were to try to invade Taiwan — the most likely flashpoint for a superpower confrontation — it might need as many as a million. If the US were to defend the island, according to some estimates it might suffer as many as half the number of casualties in just the first three weeks of fighting as it did in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The last time the US fought wars anywhere close to this scale, many of those fighting were not there by choice: the military draft only ended in 1973, as American involvement in the Vietnam war was winding down. That conflict involved some 2.7 million American servicemembers in total, more than 58,000 of whom were killed — around 30 percent of whom were draftees.