THE PENTAGON — Viewing a progress report on key Ukrainian military objectives, Army officers up and down the ranks today wondered aloud why the Ukrainian military has not changed any of its statuses from “amber” to “green” — or even from “red” to “amber” — in order to address the ongoing Russian aggression in their country.

“That’s a lot of yellow and red,” the collective body of military professionals who lead one of the largest, best-equipped armies in the world said, scratching their heads and adding that they wonder what their Ukrainian counterparts’ next evaluations will look like.

Status reports are commonly used by the Army to codify progress on a range of tasks — from vehicle maintenance through standing up a functioning democracy in the third world — in a “red, amber, green” format.  

Red typically tells the supervising officer that something, possibly the color, needs to change before his or her commander sees it.  Amber signifies that things are progressing and “are really more ‘gramber,’” according to several experts. And green means that there’s nothing to see here.