Palantir CEO Alex Karp Wants To Bring Back The Draft In Controversial Company Manifesto As US Draft Regulations Become 'Automatic' By End Of Year
National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost
Palantir, the controversial defense contractor and data analytics company, says it wants to see an end to a voluntary military and replace it with a national draft. That’s according to CEO Alex Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska, head of corporate affairs and legal counsel to the office of Karp, and remarks they made in a book called The Technological Republic.
Palantir over Sunday published a 22-point manifesto on X extracted from the book, laying out the company’s official position on a number of different viewpoints concerning defense, war, AI, surveillance, data, work and more.
The points are as follows:
1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.
2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.
3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.
4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.
6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.
8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.
9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.
11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.
12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.
13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.
14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.
15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.
16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.
17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.
18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.
19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.
21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.
22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
Point 6 and the reinstatement of a national draft has caused the most controversy online.
In a 2024 interview with the New York Times, Karp told the paper that he believed World War III with Russia, China and Iran was “very likely” to occur in the next several years, he said at the time — an opinion aligning with the points raised in his latest book. The NYT wrote:
[Karp] thinks the United States is “very likely” to end up in a three-front war with China, Russia and Iran. So, he argues, we have to keep going full-tilt on autonomous weapons systems, because our adversaries will — and they don’t have the same moral considerations that we do.
“I think we’re in an age when nuclear deterrent is actually less effective because the West is very unlikely to use anything like a nuclear bomb, whereas our adversaries might,” he said. “Where you have technological parity but moral disparity, the actual disparity is much greater than people think.”
“In fact,” he added, “given that we don’t have parity technologically but we don’t have parity morally, they have a huge advantage.”
Mr. Karp said that we are “very close” to terminator robots and at the threshold of “somewhat autonomous drones and devices like this being the most important instruments of war. You already see this in Ukraine.”
[…] “Are we tough enough to scare our adversaries so we don’t go to war? Do the Chinese, Russians and Persians think we’re strong? The president needs to tell them if you cross these lines, this is what we’re going to do, and you have to then enforce it.”
[…] He said he would support class-based affirmative action and declared himself “pro draft.”
“I think part of the reason we have a massive cleavage in our culture is, at the end of the day, by and large, only people who are middle- and working-class do all the fighting,” he said.
Moreover, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar also hinted last year that a war with China is imminent, and even though Palantir has worked with companies such as Nvidia before, Sankar was not afraid to insinuate Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and others as “useful idiots” for having softer tones in describing China, arguing that the U.S. is already in an “economic war” with China.
Palantir’s controversial remarks of course come during escalating tensions with the ongoing Iran War, with every indication signaling that the war will greatly expand and drag on for much longer.
On top of that, earlier this month it was finalized that beginning in December of this year, the Selective Service will finally be automated, meaning that once an American turns 18 their name will automatically be added to the draft pool. This does not mean that they will be drafted, it just means that instead of an American having to legally file their application, that process will be automated instead.
Edward Hasbrouck via AntiWar.com wrote:
On March 30th, the Selective Service System (SSS) sent the White House its proposed regulations for “automatic” [sic] draft registration for review and approval before they are made public. This is the first visible step in the transition from trying to get young men to sign themselves up for a military draft, to trying to sign them up “automatically” by aggregating data requisitioned from other Federal agencies.
This year-long process began with the enactment of the SSS proposal for “automatic” registration in December 2025. The new scheme is supposed to go into operation in December 2026.
The SSS has been keeping a low profile to avoid calling attention to its attempt to lay new groundwork for a draft in the middle of a major military escalation. The SSS hasn’t issued a press release in the four months since the enactment of the “automatic” registration law, has no details of its plans for “automatic” registration on its website, and has delayed responding to my FOIA request for those plans. This has led to hasty and credulous reports in the last few days by journalists who saw the notice of the proposed rules but hadn’t followed the legislation, didn’t know to expect this next step in the process, and weren’t aware of the widespread and increasingly organized opposition to this plan.
This isn’t a Trump 2.0 initiative. Documents released in response to one of my FOIA requests show that the legislative proposal for “automatic” draft registration was drafted during the Biden Administration by the former Trump 2016 Oregon state campaign director, Jacob Daniels. Still at the SSS today, Daniels is one of the Trump loyalists who got jobs at the SSS during Trump’s first administration. But both support and opposition to Selective Service has been and remains bipartisan.
Most of the latest news articles have said that all male U.S. citizens and residents “will be registered automatically” by the SS. What they should say is that the SSS will try to identify and locate all potential draftees. Whether that is possible, much less whether the SSS will succeed, is questionable.
[…] The SSS is a tiny agency being given unprecedented authority to demand access to data from all other Federal agencies. The attempt to register potential draftees “automatically” will be a large, complex exercise in data collection, data sharing, and data matching between the SSS and other agencies.
[…] “Automatic” registration was enacted with no public awareness, hearings, debate, or budget review. It’s a bad idea, and it won’t work. The chances for repeal of the MSSA may depend on how soon and how widely “automatic” draft registration is recognized as not only bound to fail but a data grab for DOGE and an enabler of more aggressive war planning and policies.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Psalm 68:30 Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till every one submit himself with pieces of silver: scatter thou the people that delight in war.
Of course this maleficent fiend and psychopath wants a draft: he directly profits from the killing, just like all the other defense contractors in the biz! I said last year when Karp predicted a three-pronged war between Russia, China and Iran that it was a “lock” then; and it very much is panning out to be that.
Remember also that the Trump administration has not ruled out a draft, when Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt point-blank asked about it on Fox News. “President Trump wisely does not remove options off of the table. […] It’s not part of the current plan right now, but the President, again, wisely keeps his options on the table,” she said last month.
Keep in mind that this is the very thing that Trump and his soon-to-be cabinet officials said would happen under Kamala Harris…
A lot of people say that there will not be a draft, others say there will. I tend to think that the Trump administration is going to try at some point, but we’ll see, maybe not. In any event, I really hope my generation and Gen Alpha grow a spine and stick to their guns (no pun intended) and refuse this.
As for automation for the SSS, it appears it is not going to work out all too well… unless (!) — how much do you want to wager that by year’s end Palantir and/or Oracle will get involved to help with the automation process? How much do you want to bet? I mean, they have so much data on us anyway, it would not be too difficult for the Trump administration to contract them to handle the data compilation process for the SSS. I sure hope not, but I have a suspicion that that will probably happen at some point.
As for Palantir and some of the other points Karp made, these people are sick and evil, what more can I say that hasn’t been said already?
On an earnings call last year, Karp said Palantir’s mission was to “scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them.” And he just casually says these things.
I have written a number of important articles detailing what this evil company does.
Psalm 140:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. Deliver me, O LORD, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man; [2] Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; continually are they gathered together for war. [3] They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah. [4] Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to overthrow my goings. [5] The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah. [6] I said unto the LORD, Thou art my God: hear the voice of my supplications, O LORD. [7] O GOD the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle. [8] Grant not, O LORD, the desires of the wicked: further not his wicked device; lest they exalt themselves. Selah.
If you enjoy this report and others like it, please consider sharing this post and supporting The WinePress down below!
The Lord Of Glory: The Detailed Guide To Who God Is – Available Now!
On one of his missionary journeys, the apostle Paul visited Athens, Greece, where he said he witnessed “the city wholly given to idolatry,” and who were “too superstitious” and worshipped a plurality of gods and deities, though the people acknowledged that there was still one God above all that was a mystery to them. When questioned by the philosophers …
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
The WinePress needs your support! If God has laid it on your heart to want to contribute, please prayerfully consider donating to this ministry. If you cannot gift a monetary donation, then please donate your fervent prayers to keep this ministry going! Thank you and may God bless you.
To support The WinePress, you can contribute by doing one or more of the following:
You may send cash, check or letters to this address:
Jacob M. Thompson
#119
12820 Adams Rd.
Granger, IN 46530
If you decide to send a check, please do not address it to “The WinePress.” Please address it to the name listed.
You can become a paid member on Substack.
You can also donate electronically by hitting the link below:
Palantir CEO Alex Karp is casual about killing people:
On an earnings call last year, Karp said Palantir’s mission was to “scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them.” And he just casually says these things.
Suit up Alex.