A Starfleet draft during the Dominion War

[Nyotarules]

The US is not a military dictatorship.. ..it still uses the draft

The authority for that process comes from the government not the military

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Closest thing we have in canon is the "little-known, seldom-used" reserve activation clause. "In simpler language, captain, they drafted me!"

Which pretty much confirms that Starfleet does have an equivalent of the Indivual Ready Reserve, if only for (senior) commissioned officers. I would suspect that considerable use of this was made during the Federation-Klingon War and especially the Dominion War.

Wouldn't a draft be difficult since everyone's an officer and attends the Academy? Really, all a draft would do is increase how many cadets are now moving to San Francisco.

Even if we buy the idea that anyone can become an officer, crewmen and yeomen (who wouldn't have the academic credits to enter the fleet be commissioned) have been part of Starfleet since The Cage, though it's worth noting that out of the two most iconic 'noncoms' in Star Trek, one of them did become an officer later (Rand) and the other is known to have been offered the chance, but either turned it down or didn't fulfill some (academic?) requirements and was a noncom later (O'Brien).

I think the most likely scenario with either a draft or recruitment push with relaxation of standards would be aimed at bringing in additional "security" personnel (ala the US National Guard) and various rear echelon/planet-based "military operations other than war" personnel in order to free up experienced personnel for ship/starbase duty.

 

[diankra]

There's definitely fast-tracking: Cadet Nog gets promoted to ensign without finishing his four years at the Academy.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

There's definitely fast-tracking: Cadet Nog gets promoted to ensign without finishing his four years at the Academy.

In fact he spent no more than two years as a Cadet (and only about a year at the Academy), before being promoted to Ensign.

Whereas, Wesley Crusher spent three years undertaking field studies (nominally as an ensign), and about the same amount of time at the Academy, but was still a cadet when he resigned (by contrast Nog was either a JG or LT by this point in his career).

 

[kkt]

The instructors at the Academy thought Wesley was as annoying as I do and hoped he'd learn better by the time he was out ordering NCOs around?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't think they would need a draft, we've always seen Starfleet as something difficult to get into. All they'd need is to lower the academic standards.