And it took the Lithuanians 10 years to westernize, right?

It took the Polish, you know, 12, 13 years to westernize their military.

You're not going to do this in three years.

The ones that were fighting in the Dunbos, right, they were learning, right?

And that's where we saw kind of this empowering lower level leadership, right?

Not having a super rigid hierarchical thing where only the general can make a decision, right?

The speed of combat in the 21st century is too fast for that.

Hey, welcome back to the Modern War Institute podcast.

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI, and for this episode, I had a chance to talk to

retired U.S. Army Colonel Liam Collins.

Some listeners will recognize that name.

Besides publishing widely in recent years on a range of topics, he's also the former director

of MWI.

But from 2016 to 2018, he

also had a job focused on assisting the Ukrainian military with a series of pretty substantial

reforms. That firsthand experience gives him a really insightful perspective on Ukraine's military

capabilities. That's especially relevant today for, frankly, pretty obvious reasons.

Russia has moved large numbers of troops to the area near its border with Ukraine and into

neighboring Belarus. Tensions have been ratcheted up, and the situation is the subject of

increased media tension and intense discussion within the military and national security

community in the United States and within NATO.

A while back, I had the chance to talk to Michael Kaufman for the MWI podcast about Russian capabilities

...