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Aiiight. I got another #NextGenNatSec thread coming up, this time on my short stint as a national security reporter. I loved @Jalopnik and shout out to @bypatrickgeorge and @Ballaban for hiring me and trying to change the narrative on coverage.
My critiques of national securityreporting is that there are too many white men who wished they had been in the military writing in the space. They may know military hardware, but don’t understand imperialism, intersections of race and capitalism and colonialism. #NextGenNatSec
Little time is spent interrogating the perpetuation of im perialism by private industries that build weapons of war. When I was first hired to write about the military, I had never been on the beat. Knew little about hardware. I’m a policy guy. #NextGenNatSec
I decided that I’d focus my time on challenging the conventional wisdom of merely describing, say, an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) and interrogating why we need them in the first place. FYI: I’m for abolishing the US nuclear weapons program. #NextGenNatSec
Of all the issues I covered at Jalopnik, I was fascinated most with nukes. The science and engineering behind their creation is mind blowing. @Ballaban spent hours discussing yield and ratios of the minuteman III warhead and how much area the blast would cover. #NextGenNatSec
For example, one Minuteman III costs at least $7 million. There are some 440 (that we know of) in commission. They make up out ground component of the triad (air, sea and land)
I have a simple question: why?
Let me break this down. #NextGenNatSec
I have a simple question: why?
Let me break this down. #NextGenNatSec
A minuteman III warhead (w78 and w87) carries up to 475 kilotons of yield. To put that in perspective, the bombs dropped in Japan carried around 15. #NextGenNatSec
That’s fucking insane!
That’s fucking insane!
I was less concerned about how they worked (I mean, did write about that). I cared more about why billions in tax dollars are used to pay for weapons a. We aren’t using and b. We don’t need as many as we have. #NextGenNatSec I called for scrapping them. https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-the-u-s-must-get-rid-of-its-land-based-nuclear-mis-1796677582
As a black person, I’m very skeptical of any policy that tells me I need violence or the threat of violence to secure my safety. I also know that violence is an industry—like policing. Like policing. We don’t need nuclear weapons to be safe. #NextGenNatSec
I think if there were more black writers in national security media, there would be more interrogation of the safety argument behind MAD or mutually assured distruction. #NextGenNatSec
Here’s a breakdown MAD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
Here’s a breakdown MAD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
Russia and America have roughly 14K nuclear weapons (that number was around 80K at some point) between them, roughly 90 percent of the world’s arsenal.
Also, you don’t need 10 percent of those weapons to destroy the world. #NextGenNatSec
Also, you don’t need 10 percent of those weapons to destroy the world. #NextGenNatSec
I think more black writers would ask, “can we use the money spend on nukes to build schools?”
“Can nuclear weapons scientists convert their skills to renewable energies?”
“Can money spent on nukes fund the green new deal?”
#NextGenNatSec
“Can nuclear weapons scientists convert their skills to renewable energies?”
“Can money spent on nukes fund the green new deal?”
#NextGenNatSec
When I tried to address these issues, lots of readers didn’t want to hear why the weapons were not needed; they wanted me to repeat the echo chamber talking points out of DC. I had a contentious relationship with a lot of FoxTrot Alpha readers. 
