Notes from a militant vegan

Some of you don't know that I'm a militant vegan, in the only sense of the term that makes sense: I'm a vegan who's about to talk to you about military matters. If there's a way of eating that's militant, it's one that supports the factory farming system. But I digress.

I didn't grow up--or even go to grad school--thinking I'd come out militant, but I did. I thought about whether I was betraying my values, but I concluded that as long as militancy exists, I need to understand it and work on it from the inside. And weeks like these, where bullshit proliferates, I'm very glad to know and to be able to explain exactly why it's bullshit.

When I read the comment about nuclear material expiring, I shared it with my colleagues, who all had the same reaction--along the lines of wtf, that makes no sense whatsoever. One colleague noted that the statement was "designed to alarm the uninformed." And these issues are not merely philosophical; they can lead to misguided legislation and policy. For example:

During NDAA Senate floor debate last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) blocked an amendment proposed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that would have prevented the Obama Administration from moving forward with its April-announced plan to accelerate dismantlement of retired nuclear weapons by 20 percent.

First of all, our disarmament is not unilateral, and defunding dismantlement operations is not going to change dismantlement policy decisions; it will only make it harder to actually modernize the stockpile (not to mention, incur costs). When the decision was made to accelerate dismantlement of the retired W 76-0 warhead, the Navy avoided spending $190 million to construct a new storage facility.

But lets talk about whether the nuclear arsenal works: In 1995, the President established an annual stockpile assessment to help ensure that the nation’s nuclear weapons remain safe and reliable without underground nuclear testing (we've observed a moratorium on underground nuclear testing since 1992.) The directors of the national laboratories and the Commander of STRATCOM each complete an annual nuclear weapons stockpile assessment report. To this end, the Department of Energy (through its labs) conducts a variety of nonnuclear tests that evaluate the condition, safety, and reliability of stockpiled weapons. Each year, the stockpile has been deemed safe, secure, and reliable.

For more on the overall future of arms control and why it matters, see this.