Thread by @RadioFreeTom

So, this dumb Counterpunch thing leads me to a story about working for the Navy. It's a story about challenging conventional wisdom, and how the military can be both good and bad about that. Mostly, it's a positive thing, even if it realllllly pissed me off when it happened. /1

Almost ten years ago, I wrote a book called "No Use," about nukes. It was a pretty hard critique of U.S. nuclear policy, which I said had become reflexively dependent on nukes as a kind of placeholder for strategy and hadn't let go of stupid ideas about nuclear conflict. /2

I called for unilateral reductions, minimum deterrence, de-alerting, all that stuff that nuclear hawks really, really hate. I also called for a conventional increases so that we could make real threats against rogue proliferators instead of dumb "we'll nuke you" hand-waves. /3

All this was contrary to stated U.S. policy and deeply critical of it.
The cool thing? The deputy commander of STRATCOM said: "We need to think about this. Come be part of our deterrence symposium," a big annual event. So I did. Was on a panel. Lively debate. /4

The not-cool thing is that a young Navy officer - a colleague - in the audience thinks I've gone off the rails, and calls his boss in Newport, and says Tom Nichols has gone rogue or some damn thing. This young officer means well, and tells me he did this. (I have no idea why.) /5

But then another cool thing: The guy in Newport (who has since passed away) complains to an admiral about what I'm saying and writing. A friend of mine saw the exchange: The admiral says "Uh, whatever, but the Navy doesn't tell its profs what to think or say." #GoNavy /6

I won't say much about what happened next, except that I wanted, and got, an apology. But the point is that military academics can in fact buck policy and find that there are people who want to hear what you have to say. /7

Caveat: Colleagues at other military institutions could tell you stories that did not end as well. It's a challenge, for sure. I know in one case a book angered a senior officer so much he nearly wrecked his service's war college over it. That's a story for another day. /8

I'll be writing more later in @TheAtlantic about what I experienced as a military academic, because it's not an area of the military or higher education the public gets to see much. But I could always speak my mind on anything. /9

Anyway, if you're curious why I eyerolled so hard at Counterpunch's natsec writer (an old Soviet hand from the 70s and 80s) trying to depict me as a "let's build more nukes for Europe" kind of guy, it's because I took static for years about being a nuclear *dove*. /10

Of course, this was all after they wouldn't let me smoke in the office anymore

/11x