There is a broader point here that I think has yet to be really grasped by people, the US military was convinced it had learned all the wrong lessons fighting counter-insurgency/security operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, they dumped MRAPs on police departments as soon as they could, tight integration of on demand Close Air Support was de-emphasized in favor of longer range standoff aircraft and US military circles hammered over and over again that the US Military needed to forget all the silly middle east war on terror stuff and focus on the more “serious” future near-peer war with China.

The reality however is kind of the opposite. The MRAP has turned out to be vital in the full scale land war of Ukraine, the integration of technology into organic small unit tactics that happened in Afghanistan and Iraq by coalition forces was a precursor echo to the innovation that has happened in Ukraine in those areas, the entire concept of warfare becoming more spread out, forces becoming more isolated and atomized while at the same time more detectable was precisely indicative of the kind of threat environment that has developed in Ukraine, drones doubled down on these tendencies and accentuated them. I can go on but my point is that there are many many many clear lines of evolution of military strategies and technologies from one type of war to another.

I think everyone who worked for thinktanks thought that the period where Infantry were treated as highly professional operators who were expected to maneuver independently through large swaths of territory with many neutral entities that had to be differentiated from combatants was a brief interlude between “Great Power Wars” where infantry are just a numbers game that you throw at the enemy until they buckle. Further it is obvious to me the rise of drone warfare cemented the ideology in the russian military that infantry are worthless, low skill and irrelevant outside of being another number to the war machine. Russia clearly thought “ha! finally! We can treat our lowskilled frontline infantry as truly as worthless now that AI/robots are so advanced!”. To be fair, most of the powerful companies and governments in the “West” have tried to do the same, but the difference is that at a doctrine level the acceleration of the cancerous tendency in the russian military to treat human beings as entirely worthless and expendable has been far more devastating to the russian war machine.

You can see all of that now reflected in videos like this, the infantry spearheading russian assaults are the most desperate, clueless people involved in the broader russian operation, almost by definition otherwise why would they agree to be sent to their deaths so obviously and catastrophically? They would have bullshitted their way into a better assignment than frontline infantry assault if they weren’t so desperate or clueless. To the russian military these roles are to be filled by entirely expendable assets and ending up there is an admission that you are shit at climbing the russian social ladder.

On the otherhand the infantry spearheading Ukrainian assaults are usually far more well equipped, supported and informed about the state of the battlefield than most Ukrainians in the broader operational area, almost by definition otherwise why would Ukraine be committing those specific troops to an action taken proactively rather than as a defensive reaction? Ukraine treats their infantry in general as highly trained professionals who are given specific, highly structured itineraries to follow to reach the frontline according to operations tailored for the reality of the local battlefield and this is the reason russia will lose this war ultimately. Russia wants to pretend the job of Infantry is a low-skilled job you throw disposable “stupid” desperate people into, the reality however is that it is an extremely high skilled profession that requires constant mental and physical adaption and most crucially genuine institutional trust.

Ukrainian infantry go into assaults knowing that Ukraine will do everything they can to rescue, evacuate, treat and care for them if they are seriously injured, I can’t imagine how scary it still is for them but undoubtedly it is an entirely different mindset to go into battle with than if you have just been handed an AK47 and told to keep crawling forward until you starve to death good luck!