Lieutenant-Colonel Brown is an Army Intelligence Officer. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1988, as a non-commissioned member in the infantry. He served in the Royal Canadian Regiment and 3 Commando, the Canadian Airborne Regiment, and rose to the rank of sergeant. He later transferred to the Intelligence Branch and entered the Royal Military College as an officer cadet (in Otter Squadron) to complete his undergraduate studies. After commissioning, he served in various capacities as an Intelligence Officer at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.
Lieutenant-Colonel Brown is a graduate of the Canadian Army Command and Staff College and the Joint Command and Staff Programme at the Canadian Forces College. His operational deployments include tours in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.
University Degrees
- PhD – Royal Military College of Canada
- MA – Royal Military College of Canada
- MDS – Canadian Forces College / Royal Military College of Canada
- BMASc – Royal Military College of Canada
Research Interests
- The Canadian Army in the World Wars
- Officer and NCO training in the Canadian Army
- The role of intelligence in military operations
Publications
- “The Strategic Leverage of SOF.” In Force Multiplier: Utilization of SOF From a Small State Perspective, edited by Bernd Horn and Hans Ilis-Alm, 13-29. Ottawa: CANSOFCOM Education & Research Centre, 2024.
- Editor and contributor. A Perilous Future: High-Intensity Conflict and the Implications for SOF. Ottawa: CANSOFCOM Education and Research Centre, 2022.
- “Great Power Competition and Operating Challenges for SOF.” In Special Forces Transformation in the Future Operating Environment, edited by Peter McCabe, 119-129. MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa: Joint Special Operations University, 2022.
- Building the Army’s Backbone: Canadian Non-Commissioned Officers in the Second World War. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021
- Co-edited with Douglas E. Delaney and Mark Frost. Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in the Two World Wars. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021
- “Stepping in New Directions: The Canadian Army’s Observer Program in the Asia-Pacific Region, 1944-45.” Canadian Military History 28, no.1/article 2 (2019): 1-36.
- “Cutting its Coat According to the Cloth: the Canadian Militia and Staff Training before the Great War.” War & Society 34, no. 4 (October 2015): 263-286.
- “New Men in the Line: An Assessment of Reinforcements to the 48th Highlanders in Italy, January-October 1944.” Canadian Military History 21, no. 3 (2012): 35-47.
- “Operational Alchemy in Northern Ireland: The Mutually Enabling Relationship between SOF and Intelligence. In The Difficult War: Perspectives on Insurgency and Special Operations Forces, edited by Emily Spencer, 123-46. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2009.