You are seeing it every day. The consensus view was that the Russians would take Kyiv in two days. The Russian population is three times that of Ukraine. It has a much larger military and advanced weapons, but here we are in the sixth week of the war and Kyiv still stands. It is a great example of how tactics lag technology. In WWII, the Russians ultimately won on the same ground with large numbers of advanced tanks and massed artillery but now they are being stopped. What changed?
In WWII, the tank was a much more terrifying weapon. You could hit it directly with some artillery and it had no effect. It took a solid impact from an armor-piercing artillery round to stop it. Now a Javelin anti-tank missle can be carried by a single soldier. It has a range of 2700 yards or one and a half miles. That soldier can launch the missile and immediately move to another position which dramatically improves his safety. The missile is a precision weapon. It homes in on the heat from the tank and hits it from above where the armor is thinnest. It consistently destroys it. This single example helps you understand how new technology changes everything. There are many, many examples. Satellites and drones identify enemy positions. Drones launch missiles or crash into targets. Small missiles bring down aircraft. Warfare today is completely different. The Russians have done a poor job of taking these new factors into account.
Since my son taught me that tactics lag technology, I have learned more about the American military and how it maintains excellence. Truly excellent leaders in the American military are promoted six times during their career going from second lieutenant to full colonel. A few reach even higher ranks. At each stage, they go to school. A lieutenant commands a platoon. A lieutenant colonel commands a battalion. When an American army officer gets a promotion he goes to school for months to learn how to integrate the latest tactics and technology into their level of command. American command centers also integrate officers from all combat services into their leadership teams. That is why they are so effective in pitched battles like we saw at the beginning of the Iraq war.
Medicine is much more complicated than warfare and the technology of medicine has advanced at least as rapidly. There is no function in medicine comperable to the war college that a new colonel attends and thousands of Americans are dying because of that deficiency. We have precision weapons in medicine now. We could protect every cell and organ in the body rather than merely lowering blood pressure and sugar. “it is now critical for physicians to reconceptualize SGLT2 inhibitors as organ-protective agents rather than glucose-lowering drugs. The antihyperglycemic action of these drugs represents a tiny fraction of their broad portfolio of effects.” The same case can be made for lisinopril, losartan, atorvastatin, metformin, and spironolactone. There are new science, new systems, and new payment models that could be integrated them to deliver much more effective care. We could have one sixth as many diabetics moving onto dialysis, but we have not done that. we are running out of excuses. Americans are dying and needlessly becoming disabled. Let’s bring together the leaders and stakeholders to integrate the new science, systems, and payment models for patients with chronic diseases. We can do this! Let’s get started.
I wish that our paradigm for health care was warfare, as it would be better than capitalism. Not as good a paradigm as public health, though. As to the Russians and their warfare, I think you are correct in that their initial attack on Ukraine was based on the Nazi blitzkrieg, and woefully outdated given that we have computers, GPS, and optics systems capable of destroying tanks and aircraft from hand-held weapons. But the Russians still have the technologies of long range artillery and guided rocketry, as well as chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. I imagine we’ll see Putin use these in a fit of psychopathic rage once he fully understands his tanks and armored vehicles are almost useless as a tactic. I would hope that NATO forces would step in. In fact, I don’t really understand why NATO forces don’t land an armed battalion to create and guard a humanitarian corridor for those poor souls stuck in Mariupol right now. If planned correctly, I doubt the Russians would be able to knock it back, and it would be a temporary measure aimed at stopping the war crimes of Putin’s forces.