Author: Anne Brown

The poet Wilfred Owen, killed on the Western Front seven days before the armistice, wrote words that still cut to the bone: “For 14 hours yesterday, I was at work—teaching Christ to lift his cross by the numbers, and how to adjust his crown; and not to imagine he thirst until after the last halt.” He was describing the work of turning men into soldiers, of preparing them for the crucifixion that awaited. He knew what he was talking about. He died in the mud, at twenty-five, his poetry still in his pocket. There are those who recoil from the…

The question itself is a provocation, but a useful one. Lenin or Trotsky? The revolutionary who built the apparatus or the revolutionary who wanted to set the world on fire? Lenin was the architect. Cold, calculating, patient. He understood that revolution required structure, discipline, the ruthless application of power through a vanguard party that would brook no opposition. He believed in seizing the state and using it to crush the old order completely before building something new. No half measures. No compromises. The ends justified any means, and the ends were total control. Trotsky was the firebrand. Permanent revolution. The…

The baby formula shelves are empty. The stores have limits. The parents are panicking. And somewhere in the chaos, a simple truth emerges: people have been feeding babies for a very long time without access to Similac. The commenter’s mother had a baby in occupied Germany, where formula was often unavailable even to occupation personnel. She and her German help created a small factory for the stuff. Not a metaphor. An actual factory. Because when your baby is hungry, you figure it out. The recipe is straightforward. A thirteen-ounce can of evaporated whole milk. Eighteen to nineteen ounces of water.…

The old phrase “horse, foot and guns” covers it. Cavalry, infantry, artillery. The trinity of ground combat since before Napoleon, still true in the age of drones and satellites. You need all three, working together, or you lose. I’ve written before about the fiction of “defensive” versus “offensive” weapons. There’s no such thing. There’s only intention. A rifle is defensive if you’re behind a wall, offensive if you’re advancing. A howitzer is defensive if you’re firing from your own lines, offensive if you’re firing to support a breakthrough. The weapon doesn’t know. The intention is everything. For the first phase…

It’s tempting to watch the Moskva slip beneath the Black Sea and feel a little thrill of satisfaction. The Russian flagship, pride of Putin’s navy, either taken out by Ukrainian missiles or consumed by its own catastrophic incompetence. For anyone watching this war with hope for the defenders, it’s a moment worth savoring. But savor it too long, and you might miss what it says about us. The same vulnerabilities that sent a Russian cruiser to the bottom exist in every navy, including ours. Maybe especially ours. For years now, the reports have piled up like unpaid maintenance requests. The…

There’s a certain type of man who thrives in the fog between war and peace, where the rules are written in pencil and the truth is whatever survives the night. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is that type of man. The name alone sounds like Le Carré drafted it. Shadowy UK intel figure. Chemical weapons expert. Frequent television commentator. Former commander of Britain’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment. And now, once again, at the center of a familiar drama. Syria first. Remember the White Helmets? Those heroic first responders with their GoPro cameras and perfectly timed footage of children pulled…

There’s a question buried under all the footage of burning tanks and shattered buildings that nobody in Washington wants to answer honestly: why isn’t Putin doing more? Not why isn’t he winning—we know the answers to that, or think we do. Bad planning, poor logistics, corrupt supply chains, overconfidence, yes-men telling the boss what he wants to hear. All true, all documented, all contributing to a campaign that looks nothing like the blitzkrieg the Kremlin imagined. But here’s the part that doesn’t fit the narrative: if Putin wanted to level Ukraine, he could. The Russian air force hasn’t been grounded.…

The Russian lieutenant colonel stands flanked by two bruised men, captured, disarmed, speaking words that will follow him for the rest of his life. He says they were told that Ukraine is dominated by a fascist regime. That nationalists and Nazis have seized power. That genocide is underway. That is what they believed when they crossed the border. Now he is a prisoner. Now he knows differently. Now he says he will go to jail or do whatever he deserves. He is ready for everything. Lying to troops going into battle is a really bad idea. When the disillusionment shows…

There is a proposal worth considering, though not for the reasons circulating on social media. The fake naturalization certificate making the rounds is transparent nonsense. It misspells his name. It has the wrong signature. It uses a stock photo from his official website. It places him in Vero Beach, Florida, a detail so absurd it would be funny if the intent weren’t deception. The usual suspects are pushing it, the same ones who told us he bought mansions and yachts with American tax dollars. All lies. All easily disproven. But the idea behind the lie—that Zelensky deserves some special relationship…

The Russian lieutenant colonel stands flanked by two bruised men, captured, disarmed, speaking words that will follow him for the rest of his life. He says they were told that Ukraine is dominated by a fascist regime. That nationalists and Nazis have seized power. That genocide is underway. That is what they believed when they crossed the border. Now he is a prisoner. Now he knows different. Now he says he will go to jail or do whatever he deserves. He is ready for everything. Lying to troops going into battle is a really bad idea. When the disillusion shows…