The Tourniquet Protocol

Tourniquets are not abstractions. They are operationalized tools, most often deployed in war. Their purpose is not to heal, but to buy time - to get someone off the battlefield alive.

But a tourniquet is never a casual fix. The tighter and longer it’s tied, the greater the risk that the only path forward is amputation. It’s a last-stage intervention, never a cure.

And yet across our systems, the tourniquet has now been elevated into strategy. Schools - a design borrowed from industrial models of the 19th century - are often kept alive with compliance patches and policy workarounds. The “triage tourniquet” of test-prep, rigid discipline, or crisis staffing keeps the institution circulating just enough to appear functional, even as children and teachers lose the lifeblood of curiosity and connection.

In the criminal justice system, the tourniquet shows up as mass incarceration and “tough-on-crime” sentencing - measures meant to contain immediate crises, but left in place so long they cut off circulation to entire communities. What began as a stopgap became a permanent policy artery, one that doesn’t heal harm but multiplies it across generations.

The same logic shows up in other arenas: healthcare systems stretched to breaking but “stabilized” with temporary subsidies; social safety nets patched with pilot programs that expire before they take root; climate policy held together by last-minute compromises that don’t stop the bleed, only delay it.

A tourniquet can preserve what is worth saving - for a moment. But left in place too long, it doesn’t just fail to heal. It creates new harm.

The question is not only: What are we preserving by doing this? But also: What futures are we cutting off while we wait? And at what cost to the body we claim to protect?

Because tourniquets buy time. They do not build. And systems that mistake them for solutions risk amputating the very futures they claim to defend.

cc: The Last Lecture

Thanks in advance,
Amber Eltaieb