I view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that Putin would accept “Vietnam” without first going nuclear, because it would almost certainly result in him being overthrown and jailed or killed.
Two points:
This is why Biden is looking for an “offramp” for Putin. Is this included in your “<10%” figure?
If Putin wants to avoid being jailed or killed, a nuclear attack that by your own logic leads to a 56% chance of WWIII seems worse for him. Would ordering his military to escalate in this way be more likely to result in compliance, or a coup?
I would like to see stronger argumentation for that 10% figure, explicitly factoring in the likelihood of an “offramp,” the threat of a coup if Putin attempts to go nuclear, and justifying why Putin couldn’t halt the invasion while still hanging onto power.
Who’d be doing the jailing? Whoever replaces him in Russia? Whatever powers in Russia are likely to effect Putin’s replacement can’t accomplish this if Putin ignites WWIII, and so they are incentivized to offer him an offramp into peaceful retirement, or even simply an end to the war with Putin still in power.
My estimate is quite high (80%) that NATO’s response will be forceful enough to include a non-nuclear military strike against Russia, because key NATO leaders have already made strongly worded statements to this effect. My most likely (70%) scenario after that is Russian counterstrikes followed by rapid escalation via retaliatory actions from both sides
Obama said that if Assad used chemical weapons in Syria, that would be a “red line” that would lead to US military involvement. That’s a strongly worded statement that didn’t happen. If we didn’t invade Syria, a country that doesn’t have nuclear weapons, then why do you think it’s so likely that we’d take a military action leading to such a high probability of WWIII? Ukraine isn’t in NATO.
You frame your 70% probability of escalation from expansion to to WWIII as having two components:
Rapid escalation
Global freakout causes de-escalation
I think you are lacking a third option:
Delay tactics. The US and Russia look for the minimal “retaliations” that appease hawks while avoiding progression toward WWIII. More sanctions, cyberattacks, proxy fighting, weapons in Ukraine, spying, providing incentives for Russians to flee the country.
My 70% estimate factors in that the long history of nuclear near misses has convinced me that both the US and Russia are much less competent in de-escalation than in escalation.
If anything, the list should make you feel relaxed. Consider the pattern:
Peace → tension → nuclear brinksmanship → nuclear war
At any step, successful de-escalation brings you to an earlier one.
Items on the list you cite are pre-selected for being escalated. So far, only in WWII has a nuclear attack actually occurred. And this was in the unique historical context of the USA being the only country to have nukes.
In every other case, de-escalation successfully moved the conflict toward a lower level, and ultimately back to peace.
The more items on the list of nuclear near-misses, the more convinced you should be that de-escalation works, no matter how close we get to nuclear war.
You should, however, increase your likelihood of nuclear war the more escalated we become in the current situation.
The more items on the list of nuclear near-misses, the more convinced you should be that de-escalation works, no matter how close we get to nuclear war.
That’s an interesting argument, but it ignores the selection effect of survivor bias. If you play Russian roulette many times and survive, that doesn’t mean that the risk you took was small. Similarly, if you go with the Xia et al estimate that nuclear winter kills 99% of Americans and Europeans, the fact that we find ourself being in that demographic in 2022 doesn’t mean that the past risks we took were small: if you do the Bayesean calculation, you’d find the most likely world for a surviving Americans or European in 2022 would be a world where no nuclear winter had occurred, even if the ab initio risk was quite large.
You can also make direct risk estimates. For example, JFK estimated that the risk of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis was about 33%. And he said that not knowing about the Arkhipov incident. If Orlov’s account is accurate, then there was a 75% chance of a nuclear attack on the US that day, since there was only a 25% probability that Arkhipov would have been on that particular one of the four nuclear-armed subs.
If we live to 2080 and, in that time, double the total number of nuclear near-misses, would you feel like that was evidence that baseline nuclear risk in any single incident is on average higher or lower than you currently think?
Two points:
This is why Biden is looking for an “offramp” for Putin. Is this included in your “<10%” figure?
If Putin wants to avoid being jailed or killed, a nuclear attack that by your own logic leads to a 56% chance of WWIII seems worse for him. Would ordering his military to escalate in this way be more likely to result in compliance, or a coup?
I would like to see stronger argumentation for that 10% figure, explicitly factoring in the likelihood of an “offramp,” the threat of a coup if Putin attempts to go nuclear, and justifying why Putin couldn’t halt the invasion while still hanging onto power.
Who’d be doing the jailing? Whoever replaces him in Russia? Whatever powers in Russia are likely to effect Putin’s replacement can’t accomplish this if Putin ignites WWIII, and so they are incentivized to offer him an offramp into peaceful retirement, or even simply an end to the war with Putin still in power.
Obama said that if Assad used chemical weapons in Syria, that would be a “red line” that would lead to US military involvement. That’s a strongly worded statement that didn’t happen. If we didn’t invade Syria, a country that doesn’t have nuclear weapons, then why do you think it’s so likely that we’d take a military action leading to such a high probability of WWIII? Ukraine isn’t in NATO.
You frame your 70% probability of escalation from expansion to to WWIII as having two components:
Rapid escalation
Global freakout causes de-escalation
I think you are lacking a third option:
Delay tactics. The US and Russia look for the minimal “retaliations” that appease hawks while avoiding progression toward WWIII. More sanctions, cyberattacks, proxy fighting, weapons in Ukraine, spying, providing incentives for Russians to flee the country.
If anything, the list should make you feel relaxed. Consider the pattern:
Peace → tension → nuclear brinksmanship → nuclear war
At any step, successful de-escalation brings you to an earlier one.
Items on the list you cite are pre-selected for being escalated. So far, only in WWII has a nuclear attack actually occurred. And this was in the unique historical context of the USA being the only country to have nukes.
In every other case, de-escalation successfully moved the conflict toward a lower level, and ultimately back to peace.
The more items on the list of nuclear near-misses, the more convinced you should be that de-escalation works, no matter how close we get to nuclear war.
You should, however, increase your likelihood of nuclear war the more escalated we become in the current situation.
That’s an interesting argument, but it ignores the selection effect of survivor bias. If you play Russian roulette many times and survive, that doesn’t mean that the risk you took was small. Similarly, if you go with the Xia et al estimate that nuclear winter kills 99% of Americans and Europeans, the fact that we find ourself being in that demographic in 2022 doesn’t mean that the past risks we took were small: if you do the Bayesean calculation, you’d find the most likely world for a surviving Americans or European in 2022 would be a world where no nuclear winter had occurred, even if the ab initio risk was quite large.
You can also make direct risk estimates. For example, JFK estimated that the risk of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis was about 33%. And he said that not knowing about the Arkhipov incident. If Orlov’s account is accurate, then there was a 75% chance of a nuclear attack on the US that day, since there was only a 25% probability that Arkhipov would have been on that particular one of the four nuclear-armed subs.
If we live to 2080 and, in that time, double the total number of nuclear near-misses, would you feel like that was evidence that baseline nuclear risk in any single incident is on average higher or lower than you currently think?
Where is the 99 % coming from? I can’t see it in the paper.