Expert Analysis

If senior officers learn that asking hard questions is a career risk, not a professional duty, we will not need an enemy navy to sink us; we will do it ourselves from the inside out.

If the bombing of that vessel is ultimately judged to have targeted civilians or used grossly disproportionate force, then everyone in the chain of command, from the trigger-puller up to President Trump and his Pentagon leadership, must answer for it as a potential war crime rather than dismiss it as routine business of war.

After a summer of costly Russian pressure and strained Ukrainian defense, the war now feels less like a contest of maneuver than a slow, punishing struggle in which every kilometer is bought with blood and neither side can yet break the other.

If we’re going to call it war when it sells and justice when it burns, then we’re not the good guys, we’re a cartel with better branding and a flag.

The war is unlikely to end with a clear military decision; instead, as Russia’s reserves erode and Ukraine’s strikes steadily raise the cost of continuation, Moscow will be pushed toward a de facto halt sometime in 2026.

I am not interested in abstract “peace plans” drafted in Miami hotel suites; I am interested in whether the people I fought beside in Ukraine are being asked to trade their homes, language, and dead for the illusion of stability.

The Legion was never built to last; it was a stopgap of anger, idealism, and broken men thrown together under fire, and its dissolution only makes official what the front line knew years ago.

As military professionals, we have a duty to question and, when necessary, refuse orders that violate law, morality, or basic safety, because our oath is to the Constitution and the principles it defends, not to blind obedience.

Ukraine and Russia are locked in a grinding stalemate where neither can win outright, yet both refuse to accept the cost of defeat as the political ground beneath them steadily erodes.

When accountability breaks down, the integrity of our institutions erodes, our adversaries gain opportunity, and the security of the nation itself is placed at risk.

We are posturing for a fight in Venezuela without a coherent strategy, bleeding scarce combat power and credibility in pursuit of a mission that serves politics more than the security of the American people.

In a world fraying with division and hardship, our real strength is the quiet, unseen gold forged in daily struggle, service to others, and the deep roots of our values that no frost can reach.