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Having signed the four basic US military foundational agreements necessary for interoperability the last of those in October 2020 the Narendra Modi government will now be taking Indias military relationship with the United States several notches higher. If things move at the governments pace, India will soon be a de facto US ally without any clarity on how this will enhance the countrys defence against the combined China-Pakistan threat. Or how it would help establish geopolitical equilibrium with China.

When US secretary of defence Lloyd J. Austin III comes to India (March 19-21) after his visits to Japan and South Korea both formal US allies in Asia on the table for discussion will be the Pentagons multi domain operations (MDO) warfighting concept. That this is in the offing was indicated by the army chief, General M.M. Naravane during his February 24 address at a webinar organised by the Vivekanand International Foundation (VIF). According to Gen. Naravane, multi domain operations are the future of war for which the Indian Army is preparing.

Coming to grips with the shift in US military thinking

While the army chiefs sudden switch to MDO from network-centric operations (NCO) may have come as a surprise to many, the national security advisor, and by extension the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), had been working the ropes to get under the broader and more definitive US security umbrella. I believe that the NSAs office was acquainted with the idea of MDO during the Ladakh crisis, when in desperation the government was looking at all options to counter China. These included seeking non-traditional (by Indian thinking) means as well. A few start-ups, familiar with some of the technologies involved, have been working with the NSAs office on developing an Indian version of MDO. This was the reason the Modi government rushed to sign Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) last year even when it was unclear if Trump administration would return to power.

The Biden administration is determined to do more than incorporate allies and partners (like India) into its MDO warfighting concept. Even before the US Indo-Pacific commander (INDOPACOM), Admiral Philip Davidson recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Chinese military aggression towards Taiwan and India could manifest in fact in the next six years, the White House had asked the Pentagon to conduct a task force review on how to meet the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) challenge in Asia. Senior US officials, including the joint chiefs chairman, General Mark Milley, have gone public in suggesting what steps needed to be taken to stem the US military downslide.

The steps suggested by US military officers are meant to address two major issues: How to meet the PLAs anti access and area denial (A2AD) challenge, and how to strengthen US militarys conventional deterrence by MDO.

A2AD is the US military term for what the PLA calls its counter-intervention strategy comprising its long and medium range ballistic missiles, hypersonic and supersonic cruise missiles, early warning and long-range radars, integrated air and missile defence system, long range reconnaissance satellites and aircraft, cyber, electronic, and counter space capabilities. The counter-invention strategy or A2AD weapons are meant to disallow US military access to its bases, and to deny force operational freedom of action once there.

At the heart of this strategy is Chinas systems destruction warfare exemplified by its awesome projective-centric (missiles) warfare and ability to destroy US networks which connect its kill chain. The latter also called the Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) loop is a three-part process consisting of understanding the situation, deciding on the course of action at the command-and-control operating centres, and ordering the appropriate shooter (missiles, guns, laser guided bombs, laser weapons, cyber weapons, jamming, counter space weapons) to destroy the targets.

The US militarys three priorities

US military officers say that the A2AD challenge is huge and requires three actions to meet it. First, the US should increase its missiles production rapidly. The Trump administration had withdrawn from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019 since it prevented the US from building conventional land-based missiles over 500km range. Since China was not part of this treaty, it could unabashedly test and operationalise ballistic missiles in large numbers unmatched by any nation.

The second action relates to the challenge of PLAs long ranges and accurate missiles, especially when they would soon be enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) imbedded in them. These intelligent missiles, called lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) would be able to operate independently. Able to accomplish given tasks by themselves, LAWs would not require software networking communication with the human controller. Incidentally, this network which connects the missile to the control station is its most vulnerable part. It can be destroyed by the adversary in Chinas case, by the US thereby blinding the missile.

The answer to this problem, the US military says, is to abandon its limited and permanent Asian bases with a high density of troops in places like Japan, South Korea, and Guam. Established after the Second World War, these would be easy targets for PLA missiles. Instead, the US should seek diffused bases, at many places, where troops could be placed on a rotational basis. It is argued that dispersed and expeditionary US troops across the INDOPACOM would be a less vulnerable target and provide better conventional deterrence. Looking for such bases amongst partners in the region would be a high priority for US defence secretary Austin when he meets Indias NSA.

Would the Modi government, which has gone out of its way to seek US security, refuse an American request for rotational troops on Indian soil?

The third action the US military intends to take is to permanently position the US army-led multi domain task force (MDTF) closer to the Chinese A2AD firewall to potentially penetrate it before a major attack is mounted by the US forces arriving from rotational bases. The MDTF would comprise long-range US missiles and cyber capabilities (under the US army cyber command) meant to destroy PLA missiles.

India and the US warfighting concept

Interestingly, at the aforementioned webinar, General Naravane spoke about the need to address the PLAs grey zone capabilities short of war by the framework of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and the Department of Military Affairs under him. The grey zone referred to the PLAs capabilities in the virtual domains of cyber, space, and electronic (electromagnetic spectrum) warfare. According to the army chief, Indias defence cyber agency under the CDS and the armys demonstrated swarm drone capability on Army Day on January 15 would be able to hit the A2AD bubble.

Since this is wishful thinking, will India ask the visiting US defence secretary to help raise an India-specific MDTF with capabilities procured from the US across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China? After all, the PLA has raised a smaller version of the A2AD firewall it has for Taiwan the distance between Taiwan and mainland China is 110 miles. If India goes down this path, the presence of US military experts close to the LAC could make China review its India strategy, leading perhaps to an escalation neither wants.

Defence secretary Lloyd would likely discuss Indias involvement in the USs MDO warfighting concept with Ajit Doval, with perhaps the CDS in attendance. The MDO involves the virtual networking of long-range fire, electronic, space and cyber warfare capabilities with the physical war domains of land, air, sea, and information operations. It would involve MDO command-and-control or operating centres where information from all listed entities/weapon systems from all domains would come at a central place for decision-making to close the kill chain faster than the enemy.

The MDO operating centres, depending upon the level of headquarters, would be huge halls with umpteen computers manned by service personnel from all arms and services sitting together to make sense of the information pouring in at the speed of light in nanoseconds. There is difference between data and information which should be understood. Raw data on situational awareness procured by thousands of miniaturised sensors (electro-optical, radars, infrared, lidar, numerous acoustic sensors) placed in physical war domains would be processed instantly by edge computing. Making sense of the raw data, edge computing would turn it into actionable information which would then be passed to the MDO operation centres. The latter, which will include senior officers from all services, will then take quick decisions on action to be taken on the information coming to them.

At present, the USs individual services have their own version of MDO with two shortcomings: First, the services (army, air force, navy, marines and space force) need to interact with one another usually by voice calls and data transfer, which is an archaic way of communication. And second, software networks which link various systems or nodes are inflexible with industrial age architecture which can be destroyed by the PLAs system destruction warfare, leaving commanders blind. General Milley has proposed a joint warfighting concept Joint MDO whereby all services would be networked, bringing information into single MDO operating centres for all three services. Thus, instead of fighting wars as army, air force, navy, marines, and space forces, the US military would fight wars as a nation with allies and partners in INDOPACOM. The underlining idea of joint warfighting concept would be to make data/information from all war domains available to every participant including allies and partners into their MDO operating centres.

What India needs to ask itself

However, all this leads to critical questions. Would India be a part of the bigger US MDO for INDOPACOM? Or would it seek US help in setting up its own MDO operating centres? If yes, what purpose would they serve considering the Indian military understands warfare only in physical domains with the army as the lead service. Endorsing the MDO concept would require, in the least, the Indian Army to shift away from the outdated concept of massed territorial profile of defence and offense. More importantly, are the Indian military and the NSA/CDS working on different warfighting concepts, totally removed from one another? What about the much-publicised military reforms announced by the CDS?

The problem does not end here. Worried about the PLAs intelligent, autonomous, and thinking software networks with AI inserted into them, the US military, in 2017, had asked its Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to improve technology and warfighting concepts to match the PLAs AI enabled intelligenised warfare. The latter is a total break from the mechanised, network centric, and MDO concepts of the past and the present. In this new warfare, which is referred to as mosaic or algorithmic warfare by DARPA, technology would not support humans, but replace them. It would become algorithmic war one algorithm fighting with the algorithm of the opposing side. This software driven war would have intelligent networks, intelligent internet, intelligent military internet of things, and intelligent weapons. This would be a reality soon.

Once that comes about, the evolving US Joint MDO concept would need to make major changes in doctrines, concept of operations, and force structuring. The big change would be the removal of most MDO operating centres since most machines would communicate directly with machines within the US military and perhaps with the machines of allies and partners. To the numerous sceptics in India, frozen in military thinking, Intelligentised war, according to China would be a reality by 2027, much quicker against India, perhaps by 2024.

Indias limitations are real

The Indian military is far removed from intelligentised warfighting. This was evident from General Naravanes assertion, made twice in the VIF webinar, that while the character of war changes constantly, the nature of war does not change. Nature of war refers to defining the war, which is violence and bloodshed, and character of war is how it would be fought, and refers to technology and war fighting concepts. With technology replacing human soldiers in combat, there would be little bloodshed and violence. This would, for the first time in global war history, change the nature of war. This should give an idea of where warfare is headed, and once India hitches on to the US military bandwagon there would be no coming back.

India lacks capability, capacity, indigenous military-industrial complex, and above all military intellect to understand the deep hole we might get into by accepting any of US secretary Lloyds proposals for cooperation in combat. Surely, India would not want to get into an avoidable war with China when the possibilities of crafting a smart strategy for peace in the region exist.

Pravin Sawhney is editor, FORCE news magazine. He is writing a book on artificial intelligence enabled future warfare

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Why India Must Avoid Hitching Itself to US Military's Plans for China and the Indo-Pacific - The Wire

When Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked at his confirmation hearings earlier this month what his priorities would be if confirmed, he responded immediately that it would be a vigorous pursuit of domestic terrorism. He did not say he would lead vigorous prosecutions, just vigorous pursuits.

This is dangerous business for the Department of Justice because it transforms its role from prosecuting crimes after they happen to predicting who would commit crimes that never happen.

How could the feds predict crimes? They would attempt to do so by a serious uptick in domestic surveillance of broad categories of people based on political and ideological views. The government loves to cast out fishing nets -- so to speak -- and then intimidate or prosecute whomever they bring in.

The National Security Agency -- Americas 60,000-person strong domestic spying apparatus -- already captures all data transmitted on fiber optic cable into, out of, and within the U.S.; thats every email, text and phone call. But they dont admit to this.

SENATE CONFIRMS MERRICK GARLAND AS BIDEN ATTORNEY GENERAL IN BIPARTISAN VOTE

When the FBI desperately sought to gain entry to the cellphones of two deceased mass murderers in San Bernardino, California, a few years ago, the NSA would not help them because doing so would acknowledge the NSAs mass warrantless spying.

Stymied by their own colleagues refusal to admit their unconstitutional behavior, but emboldened that the NSA could get away with this, federal agents either would break the law themselves by engaging in warrantless surveillance or obtain warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court by claiming foreign terrorism as a pretext for domestic law enforcement surveillance.

Under the unconstitutional standards employed by the FISA court, if the feds present probable cause of an Americans communication with a foreign person, the FISA court would issue a search warrant for surveillance of all communications of the American.

This is unconstitutional because the standard for obtaining search warrants from a judge is articulated in the Fourth Amendment, which neither the Congress nor the courts can change.

CAPITOL RIOT INVESTIGATION: DOJ EXPECTS AT LEAST 100 MORE TO BE CHARGED

That standard is probable cause of crime -- is it more likely than not that the place to be searched contains evidence of crimes -- not probable cause of communication with a foreigner.

The former is a high standard intended to compel the courts, before issuing search warrants, to take account of the natural right to privacy, prevent government fishing expeditions and force the government to focus its law enforcement efforts on real, not imagined, crimes.

The FISA standard -- which morphed by a series of secret judicial opinions from probable cause of being a foreign agent to probable cause of communicating with a foreign agent to probable cause of communicating with a foreign person -- is far easier for federal agents to demonstrate than is probable cause of crime. It means that a call to my cousins in Florence is a sufficient basis for the feds to get a search warrant to surveil legally all of my communications -- telephone, texting and emails.

FBI and other federal agents know this. They know how easy it is to get a warrant from the FISA court. The most recent statistics revealed that it granted 99.96% of all surveillance applications.

When FBI agents go to the FISA court with probable cause of communication with a foreign person, but they are really looking for their targets domestic criminal communications, they have engaged in an act of corruption, deceived the court and cut holes in the Constitution they have sworn to uphold.

Once they have all of a persons communications, their plan is to find something that would constitute probable cause of crime or enable them to use fear of exposure to induce the person to work for them undercover.

If your neighbor tells you on the phone how happy he is in his anti-government group, and then someone in the group trespasses on government property and is arrested, expect a knock on your door from the feds who will demand to know what you knew and when you knew it.

If the trespass is a felony, they will claim that they can prosecute you for your silence. This, too, is unconstitutional. Silence is protected by the First Amendment.

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This is the danger of the Garland devotion to predicting who would commit crime; and it will get worse.

Expect the next legislative step to be proposals that impose the legal obligation to report suspicious activities -- and the failure to do would be a crime.

This would turn the U.S. into East Germany where thousands were prosecuted for failure to report their neighbors, friends and family; and thousands more suffered from prosecutions based on false reports.

The Fourth Amendment was written to prevent this. Under the Constitution, the government may not seek punishment for silence, surveil for beliefs or charge for crimes not committed. But if a wired undercover agent can get someone the government fears to inculpate himself with his words and then persuade that person to take a small step in furtherance of those words -- even if no actual crime is committed -- this is enough to charge conspiracy; the prosecutors favorite crime because it is the easiest to prove.

In the years following 9/11, hundreds of folks in America were set up by the feds and prosecuted and convicted for crimes that they never committed, but which they merely agreed to commit when persuaded by an undercover agent.

The government loves to give the impression that it has caught bad guys before they struck, thereby keeping us safe. Dont believe it.

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The governments first task is to keep us free. But when it violates the Constitution, it keeps us neither safe nor free.

Who will keep us safe from the government?

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JUDGE ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO

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Judge Andrew P. Napolitano: Merrick Garland, the Justice Department and the coming war on privacy - Fox News

Former presidential aide, Doyin Okupe, has advised the National Security Adviser, Maj-Gen. Babagana Monguno (retd.), to make use of satellite imaging to cover areas affected by banditry, kidnapping and insurgency.

He gave the advice in an article titled Ending Banditry, Kidnapping and Insurgency In Nigeria. Part II.

This was issued after the NSA, at a press briefing, yesterday said the Federal Government will not hesitate to use force to curb the menace of insurgents.

READ ALSO: Troops rescue 172 students abducted in Kaduna, many still missing

Okupe, in his article, commended the NSA for his commitment to the fight against insurgency in the country.

He called for the provision of rapid response capabilities and adequate funding as measures for the fight against insecurity.

The former presidential aide said, I want to publicly commend the NSA, Rtd General Monguno for his brilliant and highly hope-inspiring press briefing of yesterday 11th March 2021.

For once and for the first time, someone, though unelected, took charge and gave the Nigerian citizens some measure of hope.

Ordinarily, as a critic of the administration, I should say all he did was 2 make promises and that we have had too many unfulfilled promises both from this administration and those before it. But at the prevailing level of pervasive insecurity in the country, Promises may just suffice.

He said the security challenges will be dealt with in few weeks. We have lived with these challenges for 10 years, so even if the government can do it in few months instead of the few weeks promised, it will still be accepted and appreciated.

READ ALSO: Supreme Court upholds ex-Plateau gov Dariyes 10-year jail term

Personally, watching the NSA closely yesterday and looking beyond what he was saying, I saw some measure of commitment and veiled anger within him and this makes me believe him. But I may be wrong. However, I will like to suggest the following additional measures to the NSA.

Spend some money on 24 hrs satellite imaging and coverage of areas most affected by these challenges.

Increase ground intelligence and paid local intelligence monitors all over these areas.

Fund Police formations and tactical units in these areas. Increase force deplorability and create standby joint crack security teams in each local government area in the affected states.

In addition to State Police Commissioners working with military authorities, appoint military commanders in each state to jointly coordinate security within each state, with the state police Commissioners.

It takes no less than 1hr for any serious school kidnapping to be executed. It also takes travelling fairly long distances and noticeable mass movements before bandits arrive at their safe havens in the forests.

READ ALSO: Abductions: US ready to support Nigeria, says official

Therefore, after serious fortification of rapid response capabilities and adequate funding have been provided, any state where kidnapping is successfully executed, the Commissioner of Police and the military Commanders shall be held responsible.

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Banditry: Cover affected areas with satellite imaging, Okupe tells NSA - Punch Newspapers

An analysis by Bloomberg Government from last summer showed agencies have spent only $500,000 on zero trust architecture tools and services since fiscal 2017.

To be clear, that research only looked for specific mentions of what has become a buzzword mentioned at every conference and vendor white paper over the last two years.

BGov readily acknowledges that there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars spent on components that would go into a zero trust architecture.

The evidence of that spending and push toward modernizing the federal approach to cybersecurity seems to be everywhere, especially over the past year as agency chief information officers and others have realized the value and potential of changing their approach to network defenses. The COVID-19 pandemic reminded and reinforced the power of identity and access management as a key piece to defend against cyber attacks.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is reviewing concept papers for how to implement a zero trust architecture across six scenarios.

This project will focus primarily on access to enterprise resources. More specifically, the focus will be on behaviors of enterprise employees, contractors and guests accessing enterprise resources while connected from the corporate (or enterprise headquarters) network, a branch office, or the public internet, NISTs National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence wrote in the project description. Access requests can occur over both the enterprise-owned part of the infrastructure as well as the public/non-enterprise-owned part of the infrastructure. This requires that all access requests be secure, authorized, and verified before access is enforced, regardless of where the request is initiated or where the resources are located.

NIST said based on its review of the white papers, it plans to issue a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) to demonstrate different approaches to zero trust.

The Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency are among two of the agencies on the leading edge to do more than test these concepts.

Beth Cappello, the DHS deputy CIO, said the agency is using its target architecture initiative, which sets a common technology baseline to let programs adopt new technologies quickly, to implement zero trust components.

By rapidly implementing IT and security improvements to reduce risk, it will help the Office of the CIO address the remote work posture of our employees. Components have been able to take our target zero trust architecture and quickly customize or tailor it to field similar capabilities within their respective environments, Cappello said at the recent MicroStrategy World 2021 conference on Feb. 4. From a technology perspective, the zero trust architecture approach allow us to ensure we have a dynamic, on-demand chain of trust that is continually reassessed at each access point. Frankly, in our continued remote environment, this is incredibly important.

Homeland Securitys approach to zero trust is all about reusable architecture guides that are focused on user needs and developed with the components in mind.

Cappello said policy templates, pattern libraries and reference implementations also help to ensure DHS is implementing zero trust concepts in a standard way. The DHS zero trust action group which is made up of experts from across the agency is leading the coordinating, developing and sharing of these documents and individual experiences.

Thus far, we have fielded seven zero trust use cases to enhance access to IT assets and systems, she said. These use cases augment security while also reducing the load on our VPN connection points. This zero trust architecture approach also increases our network performance by leveraging a cloud access security broker and cloud security gateway capabilities to give users secure, direct access to cloud managed applications thereby reducing traffic on that Homeland Security enterprise network.

NSA is taking a similar approach as DHS, providing policies and reusable components as part of its zero trust approach.

Timothy Clyde, the lead systems engineer for NSAs external identity solutions and service offerings, said at the recent SailPoint Evolution of Identity conference that the agency launched a zero trust pilot just over a year ago with the goal of figuring out how to get users the data they need when they need it no matter the current set of policies and rules.

What is the level of trust that needs to go with that identity? Clyde asked. Depending on what the level of trust is that needs to be with that identity, comes the governance above that identity. Weve used policy engines. We tag our data and have been doing it successfully now for well over a decade. Some people would argue once you have a solid identity for the person, the device and the data, the policy then becomes probably the most important piece of it. It does need to be dynamic enough, that depending on the environment, you may have two policies that are almost identical. But if you are in Environment A, you may have access, but if you are in Environment B, you may not.

Clyde said the initial phase and roll out of the zero trust pilot includes a lab to test technology components for DoD partners and NSA also is making its policy engines available for others to use in their environments.

Neal Ziring, the technical director for NSAs Cybersecurity directorate, said the agencies can use policy engines to underpin the process to decide who is granted access to information. He said the policy is at the heart of access control.

Policy administrators create the rules that allow (or not allow) people and systems to access data. In a zero trust architecture, when a user makes a request to access data, the request is sent to a policy information point (PIP). The PIP provides the user information (such as attributes, clearance level, where they are located, etc.) to a policy decision point (PDP). The PDP analyzes this information along with additional policy rules regarding who can access that data, and determines if that user on that device is allowed to access that data. The PDP then delivers this decision to a policy enforcement point (PEP) who is the final authority on whether or not that user or device gets access to that data and either allows or disallows access, Ziring said in an email to Federal News Network. These PIP, PDP and PEP sub processes, when combined, are commonly referred to as the zero trust policy engine.

The zero trust pilot is a joint effort amongst U.S. Cyber Command, the Defense Information Systems Agency and NSA where they are researching, developing, piloting and lab testing technologies.

The team has been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of zero trust at preventing, detecting, responding and recovering from cyberattacks, Ziring said. NSA is part of the joint team developing the DoD zero trust reference architecture. NSA is developing zero trust best practices and guidance to share with a broader set of US critical network owners, such as National Security System owners. NSA is working with the DoD CIO and DISA to update any existing cybersecurity policies as applicable to include zero trust principles to ensure that all of DoD is synchronized on zero trust, and implements zero trust in a secure and standard way across the department to protect critical information.

He added the DoDwide working group is partnering with NIST to ensure the guidance on zero trust are in alignment across government.

Under the pilot, NSA and U.S. Cyber Command established an unclassified lab at DreamPort, a public-private innovation partnership that hosts zero trust equipment and simulates customer environments where they test diverse configurations of zero trust implementations.

Ziring said it also serves as a location to hold unclassified discussions with zero trust stakeholders, such as government customers and vendors.

The ability to engage with our stakeholders at the lowest possible classification level allows for broader engagements across the community and an increased understanding of cybersecurity as it evolves, he said. We have a separate testbed with DISA that will host any anticipated classified information.

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DHS, NSA creating reusable pieces to zero trust foundation - Federal News Network

A new petition issued from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has made it to the Supreme Court and aims to declare the historic male-only military draft to be unconstitutional.

Noting that the U.S. Department of Defense lifted the ban on women serving in combat in 2013, the petition specifies that the obligation for men to register upon turning 18 years old has yet to be applied to women.

Thousands of women have since served with distinction in combat positions across all branches of the military, the formal petition reads. The registration requirement has no legitimate purpose and cannot withstand the exacting scrutiny sex-based laws require.

Rooted in this argument is the 1981 case Rostker v. Goldberg, which argued that because American men are required to register under U.S. law and women are not, the male-only draft is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

The act gives U.S. presidents the power to require mandatory conscription of eligible adult males into the U.S. Army, but excludes women. Ultimately, the court held that the act does not violate equal protection clauses under the Fifth Amendment, and that the government is allowed to develop an army in times of national emergency.

Now, the petition asks the Supreme Court to overrule Rostker v. Goldberg since women are formally allowed to register for military service and in combat roles.

It is time to overrule Rostker. The registration requirement has no legitimate purpose and cannot withstand the exacting scrutiny sex-based laws require, the petition states, citing that military departments acknowledge that requiring both men and women to register would 'promote fairness and equity and further the goal of military readiness.

The Department of Defense has made strides in including women in combat roles, authoring a report in 2015 that called its own previous standards excluding women from military work outdated.

In 2017, a committee was established to review the draft policy within the Military Selective Service Act to evaluate if the draft should be expanded to incorporate women recruits. Despite a commission analysis that recommended the inclusion, Congress has yet to make the requirement for women official.

The Washington Post further notes that last week, a group of veterans who held military leadership roles asked the Supreme Court to take the case and rule the male-only draft requirement a violation of the equal protection clause.

The vast majority of men ... have no advantage in readiness over women, who the current statutory scheme forbid from registering, the brief, filed by former National Security Agency (NSA) director Michael Hayden, reportedly said.

Debate over whether or not the draft requirement for men is constitutional has ensued in multiple lower courts, but these revitalized petitions ask the Supreme Court to overturn their original 1981 ruling.

The petitions authors also note that by excluding women from draft registration requirements, it undermines their own equality as U.S. citizens.

Like many laws that have purported to privilege women over men, the men-only registration requirement burdens women too by perpetuating the notion that women are unworthy of full citizenship stature, the report concludes, citing another Supreme Court case regarding the treatment of women in the military. Excluding women from a duty characterized as a fundamental civic obligation conveys 'not only that they are not vital to the defenseof the country but also that they are not expected to participate in defending it.'

The Supreme Court could reportedly take months before deciding to revisit Rostker v. Goldberg.

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Supreme Court asked to declare the all-male military draft unconstitutional | TheHill - The Hill